On Global Warming and the War on Carbon , or what I would re-frame as the Carbon Surplus Problem.
The Carbon Surplus Problem is a subject I am just writing a kids book about for helping my Children understand the Carbon Cycle. I will enumerate a framework of reference for the re-framing of the Carbon Surplus problem as an alternative to the War on Carbon position presently in vogue, (surprisingly, to me, also in Green Circles). Those framework headings are Scientific, Political, Economic & stakeholder representation.
Scientific
Scientific questions should be the easiest to broach as science is objective, one could not argue with that proposition surely? Sadly, the human relationships aspects of science turn out to be as fraught with status based psychology as any other field of human endeavour, cognisant of this I would recommend this excellent slide collection from Anand Gnanadesikan.
2345
There is a pedagogical deficit in public education on Climate evidenced by ignorance of the Carbon Cycle, this is hampering debate on solutions such as those proposed by Tony Lovell in the soil carbon video (At the end of this post). Partial solutions are often attacked vigorously as a climate (no pun intended) of ad hominem dominates responses to anything not fitting the bag of nails demanded of the War on Carbon, ´´CO2 as pollution´´, hammer.
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| http://zverovich.net/slides/2013-10-08-informs/ManWithHammer.pnghttp://zverovich.net/slides/2013-10-08-informs/ManWithHammer.png |
Political.
Corporate capture of highly centralised government structures and the Government tendency to look for shiny photo op type solutions crowds out the incremental and sustainable holistic solutions which seem to be viable and easily mobilised. Husbandry of the problem as opposed to the undeclared War on Carbon. The Wars on Drugs, Wars on Terrorism , are analogues to the climate that politicians have fostered vis anthropogenic CO2 emissions, sadly this style of Government is synchronous with the identification and onset of the problem of raised CO2 levels. I will not graph a correlation of this hypothesis, as we know correlation is not a reliable proof of causation.
Economic
Economic aspects of the problem are as fraught with the problem of the Law of the instrument
as political responses. Economics and finance as practised in Financialised Capitalism will of course seek to apply its own false metrics of monetary price measures. These measures are not consistent with value or utility concepts. The Money measure of utility is bound in artificial scarcity of the measure, ignorant of the availability of resources to allocate. Economists and Bankers were a large component of the fourth UK carbon budget report,
If ever one needed confirmation that cap and trade is the financial hammer seeing all Carbon as an anthropogenic CO2 nail that simply must be monetised , this document should do it.
Stakeholder perspectives.
With respect to Stake-holders, I would like to speak up for the poor and those without a voice to speak for the Landless Peasants and the continuing ravaging of self-provisioning local economies by Global demands for monoculture cash crop and debt based economic solutions. These stake-holders are as important as any of us and their voices are unrepresented it is also true that the skills and smaller scale permaculture and local vernacular specific methods are an untapped resource in utilising the surplus of CO2 currently seen as a problem and not a misapplied surplus resource.
Discourse and Selection Biases.
Ad hominem and appeals to consensus or Authority typifies even Green Party discourse on these issues. Ecological solutions will best solve ecological problems by ignoring the carbon cycle and submitting to an emissions centric financialised narrative the discourse obscures potential holistic solutions to a very natural problem ( of course human emissions are man made but the emissions are natural chemical compounds extracted from natural matter). This talking past and at one another generates much more heat than light and will all end in tears.
I have also been working on a more detailed but focused structured position argument with full references which is likely to take a few more weeks to complete. The occasional guffaw or cry of anguish will continue to emit from under my little rock here in Rural Sweden in the mean-time , I will try to muffle the volume but can not possibly hold it all in.
Two very good short videos on Carbon Cycling.
Soil carbon — Putting carbon back where it belongs — In the Earth | Tony Lovell | TEDxDubbo
Tony Lovell will explain the reasoning behind how more green growing plants means more captured carbon dioxide — more water — more production — more biodiversity — more profit. Did you know that a 1% change in soil organic matter across just one-quarter of the World’s land area could sequester 300 billion tonnes of physical CO2.
TEDxDubbo focused attention on what we call FACETS — Food, Agriculture, Climate, Energy, Topsoil and Sustainability. These FACETS are actually potent ideas shared by everyday people with an interest in these disciplines. In many of these topics there is an awareness campaign; the aim of bringing our community together united against catastrophic failures in our food-chain, environment and health. It is worth mentioning that we are also indebted to our natural systems for our economic wealth. Failures in Food, Agriculture, Climate, Energy, Topsoil and Sustainability are not just a local issue — they are a global concern. http://tedxdubbo.com/
TEDxDubbo focused attention on what we call FACETS — Food, Agriculture, Climate, Energy, Topsoil and Sustainability. These FACETS are actually potent ideas shared by everyday people with an interest in these disciplines. In many of these topics there is an awareness campaign; the aim of bringing our community together united against catastrophic failures in our food-chain, environment and health. It is worth mentioning that we are also indebted to our natural systems for our economic wealth. Failures in Food, Agriculture, Climate, Energy, Topsoil and Sustainability are not just a local issue — they are a global concern. http://tedxdubbo.com/
Carbon Cycle, part 1
Creating a future that works
Carbon Cycle, part 1
About Peter Donovan. has hands-on experience with land and stock management, low-stress stock handling, Holistic Management, community development, consensus-building, and more. He also does freelance media work; see his resume and portfolio. He completed Holistic Management International’s Holistic Management Educator course in 1997, but chose not to pursue certification. He was instrumental in bringing Enterprise Facilitation to Wallowa County in eastern Oregon, U.S.A., where he lives.
Joy Livingwell enjoys simplifying and clarifying regenerative land management so that ordinary people can understand it. She writes on a variety of topics, including ecology and sustainable agriculture. She co-authored How to Build With Grid Beam: A fast, easy, and affordable system for building almost anything (New Society Publishers, 2008).
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