[MCN] Climate action : What if necessity is socially and therefore politically unacceptable?

[Lance Olsen]

Meet the doomers: why some young US voters have given up hope on climate <https://news.google.com/articles/CBMid2h0dHBzOi8vd3d3LnRoZWd1YXJkaWFuLmNvbS9lbnZpcm9ubWVudC8yMDIwL3NlcC8yMS9tZWV0LXRoZS1kb29tZXJzLXNvbWUteW91bmctdXMtdm90ZXJzLWhhdmUtZ2l2ZW4tdXAtaG9wZS1vbi1jbGltYXRl0gF3aHR0cHM6Ly9hbXAudGhlZ3VhcmRpYW4uY29tL2Vudmlyb25tZW50LzIwMjAvc2VwLzIxL21lZXQtdGhlLWRvb21lcnMtc29tZS15b3VuZy11cy12b3RlcnMtaGF2ZS1naXZlbi11cC1ob3BlLW9uLWNsaW1hdGU?hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen>
Politically active young people are often championed as the Earth's great hope to reverse the climate crisis – but many believe we've already passed the tipping ...
The Guardian
7 hours ago

=============================================

“A group of researchers, led by a UNSW sustainability scientist, have reviewed existing academic discussions on the link between wealth, economy and associated impacts, reaching a clear conclusion: technology will only get us so far when working towards sustainability - we need far-reaching lifestyle changes and different economic paradigms.

“In their review, published in Nature Communications [ OPEN ACCESS pdf ] <<https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16941-y.pdf <https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16941-y.pdf>>> and titled “Scientists' Warning on Affluence,”

"It's all the stuff we consume and the environmental destruction embodied in that stuff that forms the iceberg's submerged part. 

“Unfortunately, once we understand this, the implications for our lifestyle are often so confronting that denial kicks in."

===========================
Bloomberg March 19, 2019
Climate Challenge Will Be Harder Than It Seems, JPMorgan Executive Warns
CHRISTOPHER FLAVELLE 
<<https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-19/climate-challenge-harder-than-it-seems-jpmorgan-executive-warns <https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-19/climate-challenge-harder-than-it-seems-jpmorgan-executive-warns>>>

Excerpts : The world isn’t cutting carbon emissions anywhere near quickly enough, a senior executive at J.P. Morgan Asset Management <https://www.bloomberg.com/quote/0215978D:US> told clients this week -- and changing that will require far harder choices than most people realize.

The message to investors, Cembalest said, is not that cutting emissions is hopeless. Rather, it’s that the U.S. and other countries will need to accept much more sweeping – and likely politically unpopular -- changes to reach that goal.

“Reduced consumption is going to have to be a part of the equation,” Cembalest said.

“I think more sacrifices are going to be needed than people still understand.”

===========================

Financial Times - March 28, 2018
Special Report <https://www.ft.com/reports>

How to make a carbon pricing system work

MARTIN WOLF <https://www.ft.com/martin-wolf>

<<https://www.ft.com/content/2d9490f2-1291-11e8-a765-993b2440bd73 <https://www.ft.com/content/2d9490f2-1291-11e8-a765-993b2440bd73>>>

1st 2 sentencess

“Carbon pricing is a good idea whose time has not yet come. But it has to do so. 

Closing 2 sentences

“The chances are high that the effort will fail. If so, our goose will be cooked.”
<<https://www.ft.com/content/2d9490f2-1291-11e8-a765-993b2440bd73 <https://www.ft.com/content/2d9490f2-1291-11e8-a765-993b2440bd73>>>


===========================
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences first published November 7, 2019.
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1917051116 <https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1917051116>

Excerpts : The emission of greenhouse gases into Earth’s atmosphere is a by-product of modern marvels such as the production of vast amounts of energy, heating and cooling inhospitable environments to be amenable to human existence, and traveling great distances faster than our saddle-sore ancestors ever dreamed possible. 

However, these luxuries come at a price: climate changes in the form of severe droughts, extreme precipitation and temperatures, increased frequency of flooding in coastal cities, global warming, and sea-level rise (1, 2). 

This is the price we pay for the luxury of about 200 y of relatively unchecked greenhouse gas emissions.

===========================

“Consumer expectations of ever-higher living standards were fuelled by more lenient and readily available bank lending, …. 

“Social status and identity became closely associated with consumption, in particular with the concept of luxury. 

"Identifying oneself with the good life meant being able to live beyond traditional understandings of basic needs. Debt was the price one paid for the joys of being part of a hedonistic consumer culture.”

Kenneth Dyson. The Morality of Debt. Foreign Affairs. May 3, 2015
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2015-05-03/morality-debt <https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2015-05-03/morality-debt>

===========================
The Meaning of Things : Domestic symbols and the self. Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi & Eugene Rochberg-Halton. 1981. Cambridge University Press

Excerpts : “The point is that a habit of consumption can become an end in itself, feeding on its autonomous necessity to possess more things, to control more status, to use more energy.” p. 231

“The prognosis is not very bright, given that our goals and institutions are now geared to maximize each person’s drive to consume.”

“The most basic change needed to turn things around is a change in the meaning we derive from possession of goods and energy.” p. 232

===========================
Consumer demand - Definition  <https://www.economicsonline.co.uk/Competitive_markets/Consumer_demand.html>
www.economicsonline.co.uk › Competitive_markets <https://www.economicsonline.co.uk/Competitive_markets/Consumer_demand.html>
Consumer demand is the willingness and ability of consumers to purchase a quantity of products in a given period of time, or at a given point in time.
Demand Definition  <https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/demand.asp>
www.investopedia.com › Economics › Microeconomics <https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/demand.asp>
Jun 25, 2019 - Demand is an economic principle that describes consumer ... Market demand is the total quantity demanded across all consumers in a market ...

===========================
“The ecological systems upon which humans rely for life support are in crisis, and human behavior is the root cause.”
 
Elise Amel, Christie Manning, Britain Scott, Susan Koger

Beyond the Roots of Human Inaction. Science 21 April 2017

===========================

"The big challenge is still to deliver emissions reductions at the pace and scale needed, especially in a world where economies are driven by consumption.”

Sonja van Renssen.The inconvenient truth of failed climate policies. 
Nature Climate Change  MAY 2018
<<https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-018-0155-4>> 
===========================

"An ecologist must either harden his shell and make believe that the consequences of science are none of his business, or he must be the doctor who sees the marks of death in a community that believes itself well 
and does not want to be told otherwise.”

Aldo Leopold
A Sand County Almanac

===========================
From Energy Transition to Energy Reduction <https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020-05-20/from-energy-transition-to-energy-reduction/>
By Chris Smaje
Excerpt : My request to those working in the renewable energy industry is to ask themselves before undertaking any new project: “Will this help people to live a lower energy lifestyle than they previously did?” – which, regrettably, is not something we can say of the low carbon energy installed globally to date. If they can’t answer yes to the question, I’d request they dump the project and seek another one. It’s urgent.

<<https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020-05-20/from-energy-transition-to-energy-reduction/ <https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020-05-20/from-energy-transition-to-energy-reduction/>>>2020

===========================
“What we are witnessing is a temper tantrum against the mere suggestion that there are limits to what we can consume.” 

Naomi Klein
<<https://theintercept.com/2019/09/15/trump-straws-plastic/>>

===========================
“The American way of life is not negotiable.”

George H. W. Bush. 1992

===========================
"We are not able even to think adequately about the behavior that is at the annihilating edge."

R. D. Laing, M.D. Introduction, The Politics of Experience. 
1967, New York. Pantheon Books, a division of Random House


===============================
To: US Senator Steve Daines
From : Lance Olsen
Subject : Economic and capital risk
Date : July 25, 2019

Dear Senator Daines

I feel pretty safe in assuming that you, as a Republican, stand publicly as a guardian of the economy, and as a defender of capital. 

Given these concerns, you’ve likely heard of the capital investments firms forming an alliance based on their shared concerns about the economy and capital. 

You likely know already that, at the time of their joint statement as of December 2018, 415 capital investment firms had signed on. You may also know that, together, their concerns span across capital assets that may be worth more money than twice the value of China’s entire economy.

It seems a pretty safe bet that, when this interesting new alliance of capital investors issued its statement of last December, word of it worked its way around Washington.

Concerned for the safety of investment capital, the 415 firms, now allied as the new Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change, has begun a campaign asking that governments 1- cease subsidy of fossil fuels, and 2 - initiate a price on carbon. They also called for 3 - corporations to disclose their own exposure to risk associated with fossil fuels and the atmosphere’s carbon problem.

I’d be interested in your perspective on this matter.

Lance Olsen

===========================

The Wall Street Journal Sept 9, 2020
POLITICS <https://www.wsj.com/news/politics?mod=breadcrumb>
Climate Change Poses Major Risk to Financial Stability, Report Finds
Study commissioned by commodity futures regulator calls for better pricing of carbon emissions

The report, which says climate change could disrupt ‘the proper functioning of financial markets,’ is the first of its kind from a federal financial regulator.
By Andrew Ackerman

Excerpts

WASHINGTON—Climate change poses a major risk to the stability of the U.S. financial system and requires aggressive action from Washington policy makers, according to a report from an advisory panel <https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-former-goldman-quant-taking-on-climate-change-11588959868> to the top U.S. commodities regulator released on Wednesday.

“As we’ve seen in the past few weeks alone, extreme weather events continue to sweep the nation from the severe wildfires of the West to the devastating Midwest derecho and damaging Gulf Coast hurricanes,” said Rostin Behnam, a Democratic CFTC commissioner who sponsors the advisory panel responsible for the report. “This trend—which is increasingly becoming our new normal—will likely continue to worsen in frequency and intensity as a result of a changing climate.”

The report said that “climate change is expected to affect multiple sectors, geographies, and assets in the United States, sometimes simultaneously and within a relatively short time frame.”

The report found that putting an economywide price on carbon would be the most efficient way to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, but it acknowledged pricing carbon is beyond the remit of financial regulators and is up to Congress to implement.

“Financial markets today are not pricing climate risk,” wrote Bob Litterman, the chairman of the subcommittee that produced the report and a former Goldman Sachs Group <https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/GS> Inc. executive. “The financial markets cannot do that on their own. Until this fundamental flaw is fixed, capital will flow in the wrong direction.”


==============================
 
“This buck stops everywhere.”

<<https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/06/25/caught-in-a-trap-of-our-own-making-climate-change-blame-and-denial/ <https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/06/25/caught-in-a-trap-of-our-own-making-climate-change-blame-and-denial/>>>



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