[dohboi]

Radical Emissions Planning: Kevin Anderson interview (on the recent conference and the next steps)

http://www.resilience.org/stories/2014- ... -interview

Some choice quotes: "60 -80% reduction in about ten years...very large emissions reductions every year: 8, 9, 10 %, or preferably even higher every single year from the wealthier parts of the world..."

Since constructing a full carbon-free supply of energy will take at least three to four decades, and since we need to reduce carbon emissions much earlier than we can build that capacity:

"...the only way to do that is actually to reduce our energy demand...we've left it so late now that we have to dramatically reduce emissions in the very short term, which supply options can't deliver and therefore we have to look at what we can do to radically reduce energy demand..."

"Silence is an advocacy for the status quo."

[ROCKMAN]

dohboi - Thanks. Mr. Anderson seems to be a clever guy and has reasonable ideas. Unfortunately his "plan" lacks what most solutions lack: a method to bring about implementation. We have a lot of smart folks here who have come up with reasonable if only partial solutions. All of which are worthless if they aren't put into effect. And that's where most plans fail: it's never about what we could do but what the populace is willing to do. Today we are doing what the vast majority of those folks want: producing more hydrocarbons. Figure out how to change that desire and some of these pans might be put into action. Until then it will be BAU IMHO.

[dohboi]

Thanks for the response, ROCK. Yes, he is quite clear in the first video that the conference he put together was the very beginning steps of putting together ideas of how to get to the shifts he is talking about.

Of course, we all pretty much want it to be someone else's job.

My challenge, not just to ROCK but to myself and to all, is:

What part do you see yourself playing in moving us rapidly to these levels of reductions?

[Ibon]

s what most solutions lack: a method to bring about implementation.

To Dohboi's question and to Rockman's comment there is one thing that should be obvious. There is no solution in the short time frame K. Anderson says we have save a radical pandemic or war that would in a very very short time collapse the global population and crash economic activity and consumption. That is by the way the most effective although most brutal solution.

You sometimes have to wonder if in the darkest most secret corridors and clandestine think tanks of the powers to be that such a scenario is not at times discussed as plan B if all hell breaks lose. Sends a chill down the spine of all of us proned to believe in conspiracies which I don't.

But you know what, there is a logic to this solution. And as absurd as it may sound, this would be great for our biosphere.

[dohboi]

Thanks (I guess ) Ibon.

But really, while he is certainly talking about radical changes, Anderson himself is certainly not talking about pandemics or total wars.

Can we imagine another path?

[Subjectivist]

Thanks (I guess ) Ibon.

But really, while he is certainly talking about radical changes, Anderson himself is certainly not talking about pandemics or total wars.

Can we imagine another path?

Imagination is easy, implimentation is hard and the vast majority don't want to do anything hard.

[ROCKMAN]

dohboi - The only non-worst case scenario might be coming within a breath of a worst case scenario and pulling back. That would certainly get everyone's attention. But depending on how it's portrayed by the political powerbase this still might not have the desired effect. Consider what came about from the punishments German received after WWI and how the Japanese military gained such strong influence after the US embargoed their oil prior to WWII.

Shaking folks up will get their attention and might force a change in BAU. But the new "business" might be worse than the old business. In general I'm not optimistic about group think in the face of a near catastrophe.

[dohboi]

Well put, S.

At about minute 9:40 in the second video he lays out what is necessary for "Annex 1" (wealthy countries) to do to stay within a 60% chance of staying below 2 degrees (and of course both 60% and 2 degrees should be far from acceptable):

at least 10% reductions per year starting immediately

40% reductions by ~2018

70% by ~2024

90% by ~2030

In other words, we have about 15 years to get essentially completely off of fossil fuels.

[dohboi]

"I'm not optimistic about group think in the face of a near catastrophe."

Me neither. And I'm afraid by the time we wait for reliable mega catastrophes it will be way too late as we will have already blown way past our 'carbon budget' (if we have not done so already).

But I would still love to focus the awesome brain power around here on ways to realistically get the kind of reductions KA is talking about here.

[Ibon]

Thanks (I guess ) Ibon.

But really, while he is certainly talking about radical changes, Anderson himself is certainly not talking about pandemics or total wars.

Can we imagine another path?

Not very often, but at times I do post this naked truth as a reminder that solutions that try to maintain the scale of our global population that is headstrong to continue the consumption paradigm is really in and of itself an utter impossibility. This naked logistical truth has to play on the minds of military and civilian think tank planners when they play out future scenarios.

Another path? Here is my most recent conclusion. Take the sense of urgency you read in this report and focus on your immediate core family, community, self. Do the best you can on a local basis. In your mind write off the masses of humanity as doomed. Write off any chance of institutions, public or private, as producing anything meaningul before consequences force change. Remain optimistic within this dire truth to be a beacon of change the day the collective shifts from denial to desparation in finding solutions. This day will come and it will move fast when consequences finally crack the denial barrier. Before that don't count on anything happening.

If solutions in your mind has to carry the rest of humanity along with you then you are programming into your personality deep deep futility that will only make you more pessimistic.

It's small local battles in the meantime. Everything else is an utter waste of time.

Sorry to be so bleak, but that is the naked truth.

[dohboi]

Take the sense of urgency you read in this report and focus on your immediate core family, community, self.

Good point. I do think these are good places to start. But sometimes "a prophet is least well received in his own town" or some such thing. Perhaps through the internet and elsewhere establishing a 'coalition of the willing' would then help build a critical enough mass to have some chance of influencing the next level--a coalition of the somewhat willing, perhaps? And then so on down, till the last few hard cases (whether they are in your family/community or elsewhere) will feel the full force of overwhelming disapproval (and possibly legal sanctions at that point)??

Going back to Ibon's strategy, though: Have people here already been trying this much? Any success yet?

I think it is not completely counter to Ibon's essential idea to actually target some small-scale, local institutions (schools, churches...) and private businesses/coops... Still local, but more than just families and neighbors. But perhaps Ibon would disagree?

At about 11:20 in the second video, KA points out:

--that 40-60% of emissions need come from only 1-5% of the [global] population,

--that some technological efficiencies that are already available can help (he mentions fridges), and

--that starting to think about alternative measures of a good life

are three ways of contextualizing the problem that may make it seem more tractable.

[Ibon]

I would like to explore the comments of Rockman and Dohboi being not very optimistic about group think in times of calamity. For this touches right on my core hypothesis believing that consequences will work on the collective in a positive way. Historical examples would seem at first glance to confirm Dohboi's and Rockman's suspicions. Why should it be different this time around?

Unfortunately I have to draw on a Nazi theme but not for the reason some of you may think. The german people and the Nazi's were obsessed with this idea of Lebensraum, this need for space to expand as they were economically and geographically constrained. This resonated with the masses in a group think passion that was fanatic and almost cult like. I want to focus on two points here.

The power of this group think when confronted with the belief that there were no more options. There was unified obedience, yes partially due to Arian racism and german discipline but also to a great extent because of the common understanding and belief that there was no other choice open, nazi propaganda masterfully executed and steered this group think.

This dynamic of feeling hemmed in and constrained is happening now again in the 21st century but for a very different reason. It is resource based, not geography. It is similarly also related to global economics. But unlike WWII or any other time in our history, we are globally, unified under a common umbrella of an economic system and living in an overcrowded planet. History would say that these economic and resource constraints represent a perfect storm for war and pandemics and a total chaos breakdown of our global civilization.

Now think of the two coins of our digital world. The control and survellience and NSA on the one hand and the freedom of information and how this draws us all together.

Young people are not rebellious as in previous generations. There is a collective sense that we are powerless to this giant digital juggernaut and the controls that governments are putting into place to watch over us. We see this as a giant machine that we cant fight against. Also we don't want to fight against it becuase it is viewed as sustaining us. Think of the power of digital culture with youth, integrate for a moment the positive side and the terror of drone cameras spying on you.

Now we add the consequences from our biosphere, climate change consequences, resource constraints and economic instability. 7.5 billion of us. We all know it. There is that same constrained feeling like the germans looking for Lebensraum but we all know that this Lebensraum is no more out there in the physical world, it has been all used up. The only conclusion that group think will come up with for solutions then is value changes. Cultural changes. Or we do make wars and pandemics do us in.

I am saying here it is either group think that acts as a paradigm shift of values or we do indeed collapse in the naked truth of pandemics and wars.

The middle road, which is usually the best path, is not going to work this time because we cannot extend out for centuries or decades the sheer scale of keeping this 7.5 billion Kudzu Ape consuming juggernaut going

We collectively pull together with profound cultural and value changes that reaches to the very core of our economic system once consequences start to bite or we fall victim to war and pandemics.
The middle road was abandoned 40 years ago and is no longer a viable path.

Sorry again, but this represents my clearest assessment of our global predicament.

And I do believe that collectively we are capable of rapid adaptation to new values. I give it a 50% shot, not bad odds.

[Ibon]

I think it is not completely counter to Ibon's essential idea to actually target some small-scale, local institutions (schools, churches...) and private businesses/coops... Still local, but more than just families and neighbors. But perhaps Ibon would disagree?

I am not an activist per se and I am not advocating that here. It is more the actions that one does on the local level, the example one sets. And yes, with the most intimate inner core group the discussions and analysis or our pridicamanet. I have had conversation with my construction staff here that has been as enlightening as those with the trained ecologists who come here. And surprisingly, the underlying understanding of our predicament is about the same with both groups. There is a common intuition amongst the trained and under educated that we all live in an overpopulated planet and that weather and climate and economic events and price of food bear this out. There is more knowledge underneath that denial than we realize. Let's call that knowledge under the surface subconscious knowledge that is incubating and growing and only held back by denial and fear. It only needs the catalyst of consequences to come forth.

We are primed with that intuitie knowledge that is only held back by fear and denial

The denial is at the moment only skin deep. Underneath is a huge incubating collective awareness of our predicament only needing consequences to allow transition. That is my underlying hypothesis.

I have about 12 moths to pin on the boards I collected last night. Got to go do that before they dry out. Got to take a break from this global stuff and get back the local task at hand.

[dohboi]

Thanks, I. One minor point is that we are closer to 7.15 than 7.5 billion.

The point about Lebensraum would seem to reenforce the point that there has to be a mind set in place, a lens through with they interpret events. This can be dominated by delusion, of course, as in this case.

Are you saying that, since people don't have a lebensraum mentality, they are more likely now to properly interpret events? I always feel as if I am on the verge of 'getting it' but am not quite there, so any light would be appreciated.

Interesting point about your sense of common intuition.

On activism, few people start out by seeing themselves as activists. People just notice that no one else is doing the requisite activism, and so finally, often reluctantly, take up the slack themselves.

[Ibon]

Are you saying that, since people don't have a lebensraum mentality, they are more likely now to properly interpret events? I always feel as if I am on the verge of 'getting it' but am not quite there, so any light would be appreciated.

No. The economic reality of germany after WWI allowed the Nazi propaganda to exploit this feeling the germans had of being hemmed in. Lebensraum resonated with the folk, to expand the german teritorry.

Today we are being hemmed in again, a similar feeling of tightening and squeezing. The need for Lebensraum is again present but we know collectively that it is not available physically. This will force this impetus to go in the only direction it can, to question our values and culture. The consumption culture to be more specific.

Nazi propaganda manipulated the germans in WWII. In our case it will be reality events and consequences that will be the driver. The Overshoot Predator will act as the nazi propaganda did once consequences start chiselling away at our global population that truly understands better than we assume our predicament.

We are ripe for consequences. We are ready to move fast once consequences confirm our inner intuition. This is collective. This is global.

Don't underestimate it.

Nuclear detente meant that there were no winners. The same for any one country trying to dominate the physical shrinking pie. We therefore might collectively pull together.

There is a very good chance that once again, as the Nazi's did, we will see a powerful elite manipulate this inner intuition and start WWIII. That is fine as an alternative for it also is a pathway toward a solution.

[dohboi]

OK, that helps.

Don't get me wrong--probably there does need to be some kind of 'event' to get most people to move in any direction.

But I still don't think the event, no matter what it is, does much to determine what direction the motion is.

That is always determined by combinations of people's underlying assumptions and 'propaganda'--what major sources of information are telling people about the meaning of the events.

If we aren't trying to become part of the 'propaganda,' we are ceding that role to powers whose values we may not find too...appealing.

I do thank you, Ibon, for your thoughtful reflections here.

[Newfie]

Are you saying that, since people don't have a lebensraum mentality, they are more likely now to properly interpret events? I always feel as if I am on the verge of 'getting it' but am not quite there, so any light would be appreciated.

No. The economic reality of germany after WWI allowed the Nazi propaganda to exploit this feeling the germans had of being hemmed in. Lebensraum resonated with the folk, to expand the german teritorry.

Today we are being hemmed in again, a similar feeling of tightening and squeezing. The need for Lebensraum is again present but we know collectively that it is not available physically. This will force this impetus to go in the only direction it can, to question our values and culture. The consumption culture to be more specific.

Nazi propaganda manipulated the germans in WWII. In our case it will be reality events and consequences that will be the driver. The Overshoot Predator will act as the nazi propaganda did once consequences start chiselling away at our global population that truly understands better than we assume our predicament.

We are ripe for consequences. We are ready to move fast once consequences confirm our inner intuition. This is collective. This is global.

Don't underestimate it.

Nuclear detente meant that there were no winners. The same for any one country trying to dominate the physical shrinking pie. We therefore might collectively pull together.

There is a very good chance that once again, as the Nazi's did, we will see a powerful elite manipulate this inner intuition and start WWIII. That is fine as an alternative for it also is a pathway toward a solution.

There may be other dystopian solutions as well. Soylent Green comes to mind as well as a number of methods for either limiting our life span or weeding out undesirables. The solutions go from bad to worse and I welcome none of them.

I believe that there is a fairly linear relationship between our population and our energy use/emissions. The fastest way to limit emissions is to limit the number of folks. Elsewhere I was in a discussion about this, there was a "challenge" to get us 4 billion in 25 years. Do the math. In human terms you need to start by reducing human population by something like 250 million to 300 million per year. That's a Christmas Tsunami ever three days. Or a Haitian earthquake every other day. A 1918 virus, each year, might do the trick.

At this point reducing emissions through reduced transport, reduced manufacturing, reduced fertilizer production, whatever...will eventually relate in to reduced human population. It doesn't matter if it is direct, through murder, or indirect through starvation, the end result will be roughly the same. Fewer people. It's just an argument over how much control you really want in the process.

Nazi Lebensraum required that they take over other peoples property. They rationalized it then, we could do the same once again. History shows it is possible, even in the most well educated and urbane of cultures.

Grizzly business.

[dohboi]

We're at about 55 million deaths per year right now. Just from demographics of the globally aging population, that is scheduled to go up significantly in the coming years.

In theory, a lot of the 'culling' could come just from allowing these deaths to bring world population down. That would depend on essentially ending any new births...

But the focus of this thread's discussion is carbon emissions reductions. Yes, eventually these are interrelated, but I'd like for this thread not to turn into just to turn into another population debate.

The top 20% of the population is responsible for about 80% of the emissions. So it is really that population that needs to shrink most dramatically or to radically change their behavior.

[Ibon]

They rationalized it then, we could do the same once again. History shows it is possible, even in the most well educated and urbane of cultures.

Yes we could. And we will. We need to have the collective wisdom to unhitch the upcoming consequences from political agendas that will try to exploit (providing this wisdom could be one of peakoil.com's future purposes??) . That collective intuition that we are living beyond our means in an over populated planet has to be able to reject attempts at exploitation. We will fail severely in some areas. We will have to constrain compassion along with everything else that will be constrained. Consequences will not be homogenous and some bio regions, countries, economies, ethnic groups, continents, races, socio economic groups will be hit harder than others. Some beyond our means to provide adequate aid.

There are very arrogant governments that will attempt to "engineer" and "mitigate" to defend their interests, at the expense of other groups. This is part of the solution.
These ugly consequences will happen and parallel to this our values and culture can shift away from consumption culture and move toward more cooperative arrangements. There is a tendency for some people who contemplate this to polarize the outcome as either totally ugly or naively cooperative. It will be a mixed bag as it always has been with humans.

How can we believe that there is a painless ethical way out of this mess when we allowed ourselves through ignorance and hubris to damage our planet as we have done. To think that we can wound the planet and somehow not wound ourselves as we climb out of the overshoot hole is sorry to say another example of the same hubris that got us into the hole in the first place. Comprenden?

[dohboi]

I don't think there's a painless way. And the ones being deprived of anything will feel it is not ethical.

But there are always degrees that we can, in theory, choose among.

As it is, we are choosing a ~6 degree C increase in global temps for ourselves and certainly for the next couple generations, which will be something beyond hell on earth (not to mention the horrific effects on the rest of life).