Countdown RESPONDING TO A GLOBAL CRISIS COUNTDOWN Responding to a Global Crisis Michael V Thomas Michael V Thomas COUNTDOWN Responding to a Global Crisis Michael V Thomas Copyright © Michael V Thomas 2010 The moral right of the author has been asserted Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of research or private study or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, designs and patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers. Matador 5 Weir Road Kibworth Beauchamp Leicester LE8 0LQ, UK Tel: (+44) 116 255 9311/9312 Email: [email protected] Web: www.troubador.co.uk/matador ISBN 978 1848762 282 British Library Cataloguing in Publications Data. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Future in Our Hands International Network 48 Churchward Avenue Swindon SN2 1NH Wiltshire UK http://www.fiohnetwork.org Email: [email protected] Cartoons: N.J. Smith Typeset in 11pt Goudy Old Style by Troubador Publishing Ltd. Leicester, UK Printed in the Great Britain by MPG Books Group, Bodmin and Kings Lynn Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd Insanity is doing the same things over again and expecting a different result RITA MAE BROWN Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter MARTIN LUTHER KING, Jr True hope is clear eyed. It sees all the difficulties and all the potential for failure but through that, carves a realistic path to a better future JEROME GROOPMAN For my Wife, Glenys my daughters, Lynette and Clare and grandchildren Oliver and Carys for Erik Dammann, the founder of the Future in Our Hands Movement and generations as yet unborn CONTENTS Preface xi Foreword xiii Introduction xv 1 Poverty, Hunger and Climate Change 1 - 19 2 The Global Resource and Ecological Crisis 20 - 55 3 Bullies in the Global Casino 56 - 82 4 A Share of the Spoils 83 - 103 5 Globalisation and the Race to the Bottom 104 - 121 6 Economics is bunk 122 - 153 7 Don’t Shop at Supermarkets 154 - 167 8 Sustainability and an Ethical Way of Life 168 - 193 9 A Science of Common Sense 194 - 234 10 The Future in Our Hands 235 - 290 Acknowledgements 291 Future in Our Hands movement 292-293 FIOH Affiliated charities 296 Appendix A 297 - 299 Appendix B 300 - 303 Bibliography 305 - 311 Index 313 - 319 vii LIST OF PHOTOGRAPHS, FIGURES, CHARTS AND TABLES Chart 1 Global wealth distribution 4 Chart 2 Global CO2 distribution 2001 7 Chart 3 CO2 emissions 2001 - ten countries 7 Chart 4 CO2 emissions 2018 - ten countries - CO2/Capita as 2001 9 Chart 5 CO2 emissions 2018 - ten countries - CO2/GDP as 2001 9 Chart 6 Total CO2 emissions in 10 countries 2004 10 Chart 7 Historical CO2 emissions in 10 countries 11 Chart 8 Historical per capita CO2 emissions in 10 countries 11 Fig 1 Simple water tank 14 Fig 2 World map - conflict regions 17 Photo Human outcomes of the tsunami in India 21 Table 1 Population distribution 28 Fig 3 Peak oil and gas 31 Chart 9 Energy potential of renewables in the UK 33 Table 2 Nuclear energy projections 40 Chart 10 Greenhouse gas emissions by sector 2000 45 Fig 4 Global warming and radiative forcing 50 Fig 5 Global warming and radiative forcing 51 Fig 6 Melting ice sheet in the Arctic 51 Photo Man standing on edge of Victoria Falls 55 Photo Boy soldiers, Sierra Leone 62 Photos Kroo Bay slum 86 Photos Forah Bay Road - income generating act Photo Living in the bush 91 Photos Training centre at Yonibana 92 Photos Training centre. Seed multiplication 92 Photos Internally displaced people at Yonibana 96 Photos Orphan with bicycle. Kroo Bay children 97 Chart 11 Tourism in Kenya - who gets the benefit? 102 viii Countdown Table 3 Inequality ratios 103 Chart 12 Efficiency paradox 120 Chart 13 Major banks - derivatives and assets 128 Photo Cash crops in the Cameroon 158 Photo Bicycle shopping load 188 Fig 7 Example of LETS accounts 202 Fig 8 CO2 emissions - fossil fuel source > consumer 207 Fig 9 CO2 emissions - fossil fuel source > consumer/ industry 207 Fig 10 CO2 emissions - downstream cap 208 Fig 11 CO2 emissions - upstream cap 208 Fig 12 CO2 emissions - downstream cap 210 Chart 14 Federal energy subsidies, USA 2006 211 Chart 15 Cost to households of 15% emissions cut, USA 211 Fig 13 Fossil fuel suppliers and users 215 Fig 14 CO2 Upstream cap 216 Fig 15 Cap and Share process 217 Chart 16 Comparison of permit dividend & permit giveaway 221 Fig 16 Cap and Share diagram for the Comhar Report 222 Table 4 Comparison of carbon reduction schemes for Comhar Report 223 Chart 17 Impact of PAPs in South Africa 224 Chart 18 Impact of PAPs in India 224 Photos Cuba ‘special period’ 230 Chart 19 Per capita CO2 emissions in the UK 239 Table 5 Carbon reduction targets 239 Table 6 Household carbon calculator 240 Photos Concentrating solar plants 243 Fig 17 Concentrating solar power plant, Brightsource 244 Fig 18 Concentrating solar power plant, Brightsource 244 Fig 19 Electricity Transmission Network - Europe, Middle East & N Africa 246 Fig 20 Regions of the world suitable for CSP 246 Photo Multi-effect Desalination Unit 248 Fig 21 Projection for development of CSP and desalination plants 249 Photo Solar Desalination Greenhouse, Tenerife 249 List of Photographs, Figures, Charts and tables ix Fig 22 Desert Greenhouse Desalination process 250 Fig 23 Sahara Forest Project 251 Fig 24 Passive House system 254 Fig 25 Photos - Eco cottage in Oxfordshire 254 Fig 26 Localised future rural development layout 257 Fig 27 Present urban development layout 257 Fig 28 Proposed localised self sufficient model of urban development 257 Fig 29 Localisation - urban/rural transition 259 Photo Professor Wangari Maathai and Johnny Ball 264 Photo A Womens Cooperative in the Cameroon 265 Photos Organic farming training centre 271 Photos Global Rehabilitation Services 273 Photo Kenneth 276 Photos Agro-forestry and tree nursery 277 Photos Agro-forestry 277 Photo Young prisoners - Bamenda Gaol 278 Photos Schools environmental programme 279 Chart 20 Human behaviour categories 281 Chart 21 Estimates of renewable energy resources 286 Photos Project GreenHands, Tamil Nadu tree planting 290 x Countdown PREFACE I have a recollection of a television play that created instant panic in many parts of the UK. I had not watched the play myself, but heard the later reports that it had started with a News announcement that Russian tanks were sweeping across Eastern Europe and would take over the continent in a matter of days. Many people who had not waited a sufficient time to realise that this was not a proper News item, must have thought that World War III was imminent. What I do remember very vividly was the day in 1962 when this was a very real threat. US president, John F. Kennedy, threatened to intercept ships carrying nuclear weapons en-route to Cuba under the direction of the Russian president, Nikita Khrushchev. The world held its breath! I was standing on the platform of the very dismal Didcot station on my way from Swindon to a college in Oxford, when a train travelling at about 80 mph rushed through. In that instant I imagined the shock waves that would spread out across the country as the first nuclear bombs started to drop, obliterating everything that stood in their path. In the event, Khrushchev backed down and recalled the ships thus averting the war that would probably have led to the extinction of almost all of humanity. However, this was not the only time that humanity was on the brink of the apocalypse. In November 1983, NATO and US armed forces representatives were engaged in a paper exercise simulating the run up to a war with the Soviet Union. In the wake of provocative anti-Soviet rhetoric from US president, Ronald Reagan, the Soviet leadership had become convinced that the US was planning a nuclear attack. The tension and fear had been heightened by Reagan’s deployment of nuclear weapons in Europe capable of striking Russian targets within the space of 8 minutes. In response, the Soviet Union secretly mobilised its armed forces across European borders. On the 8th Preface xi November, it was only reports from one of its top spies that convinced the leadership that US/NATO forces were not planning an actual attack. When Reagan learnt later just how close to an apocalypse the world had come, he made friendly overtures towards Soviet president, Mikhail Gorbachev, which led to the historic Nuclear Non-proliferation Agreement. Little did I believe then that anything other than a nuclear war threatened human extinction - that is until I learnt of the threats posed by global warming and the unsustainable exploitation of non-renewable resources in the face of a continued rapid population increase in many parts of the world. Now, as then, the general public across the world goes about its everyday activities as if there were no emerging crisis at all. The difference is that now ignorance cannot be used as an excuse for inaction. The problem is that these very everyday individual activities lie at the heart of the problem and few are prepared to make the changes to their way of life, especially in the affluent world, that the situation demands.