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Climate Change Means Lifestyle Change

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Climate Change Means Lifestyle Change CLIMATE CHANGE MEANS LIFESTYLE CHANGE John Scales Avery January 26, 2020 2 Contents 1 REFUGEES FROM CLIMATE CHANGE 15 1.1 A UN ruling on climate refugees . 15 1.2 Climate change as genocide . 15 1.3 The United Nations High Commission on Refugees . 16 1.4 Populations displaced by sea level rise . 17 1.5 Populations displaced by drought and famine . 17 1.6 Populations displaced by rising temperatures . 18 1.7 Populations displaced by war . 19 1.8 Political reactions to migration . 20 1.9 A more humane response to the refugee crisis . 21 2 EXTRACTION OF FOSSIL FUELS MUST STOP 27 2.1 Blood for oil . 27 2.2 Attacks on Iran, past and present . 28 2.3 The agony of Iraq . 31 2.4 The Middle East . 39 2.5 China . 39 2.6 India . 40 2.7 Russia . 41 2.8 North America . 43 2.9 Latin America . 45 2.10 The European Union . 47 2.11 Major producers of fossil fuels . 47 2.12 Fossil fuel extraction must stop! . 49 3 MONEY DRIVES THE MANIA OF GROWTH 57 3.1 Madmen and economists . 57 3.2 Fractional reserve banking . 58 3.3 Information-driven population growth . 59 3.4 Entropy and economics . 62 3.5 The global food crisis . 70 3.6 Limits to growth . 82 3 4 CONTENTS 4 BANKS BEHIND THE FOSSIL FUEL GIANTS 99 4.1 Banks give fossil fuel giants $1.9 trillion since Paris . 99 4.2 Fossil fuel industry's disinformation campaign . 108 4.3 The divestment movement begins to hurt . 112 4.4 Some hopeful signs of change . 114 5 CORPORATIONS CONTROL MEDIA AND GOVERNMENTS 117 5.1 Benefits of equality . 117 5.2 Extreme inequality today . 120 5.3 Oligarchy replaces democracy in many countries . 120 5.4 Media in the service of powerholders . 123 5.5 Television as a part of our educational system . 123 5.6 Neglect of climate change in the mass media . 125 5.7 Climate change denial in mass media . 126 5.8 Showing unsustainable lifestyles in mass media . 129 5.9 Alternative media . 129 5.10 Outstanding voices calling for climate action . 130 6 MONEY ENOUGH FOR THE GREEN NEW DEAL? 147 6.1 Cutting military budgets . 147 6.2 The Extinction Rebellion . 156 6.3 The cost of inaction . 157 6.4 Social systems in Scandinavia . 162 6.5 Roosevelt saves his nation and the world . 170 7 MAJOR CRIMES OF DONALD TRUMP 181 7.1 Impeachment . 181 7.2 Donald Trump's climate change denial . 181 7.3 Jair Bolsonaro, the Trump of the Tropics . 184 7.4 The Evangelicals believe that there is no need to act . 187 7.5 Children in cages . 188 7.6 Threats of war . 190 7.7 Alt-right . 190 7.8 Proud Boys . 197 7.9 Evangelicals . 199 7.10 The El Paso mass murders . 204 7.11 Right-wing parties in Europe and elsewhere. 204 7.12 Trump copies Hitler's rhetoric . 205 8 RENEWABLE ENERGY 217 8.1 The UK declares a climate emergency . 217 8.2 The 2018 IPCC report . 218 8.3 Greta Thunberg . 220 CONTENTS 5 8.4 Worldwide school strike, 15 March, 2019 . 223 8.5 Solar energy . 223 8.6 Wind energy . 230 8.7 Hydroelectric power . 233 8.8 Energy from the ocean . 235 8.9 Biomass . 238 8.10 Geothermal energy . 243 8.11 Hydrogen technologies . 246 8.12 Reducing emissions from the cement industry . 249 8.13 Reducing emissions from transportation sectors . 252 8.14 Renewables are now much cheaper than fossil fuels! . 261 8.15 Lester R. Brown . 264 8.16 We must create a livable future world . 266 Introduction We are not doing enough This book consists mainly of chapters and articles that I have previously published, although a considerable amount of new material has been added. The book deals with the world’s failure to adequately address the existential danger of catastrophic climate change. Greta Thunberg’s speeches at Davos, 2020 Below is a full transcript of Greta’s initial speech, delivered during a session called Forging a Sustainable Path towards a Common Future: I will speak later today so I just want to take this opportunity to once again remind everyone of our current situation. In Chapter Two, on page 108 in the SR 1.5 IPCC report that came out in 2018, it says that if we are to have a 67 percent chance of limiting the global average temperature rise to below 1.5 degrees Celsius, we had on January 1st, 2018, about 420 gigatons of CO2 left to emit in that budget. And, of course, that number is much lower today, as we emit, about 42 gigatons of CO2 every year, including in land use. With today’s emissions levels, that remaining budget is gone within less than eight years. These numbers aren’t anyone’s opinions or po- litical views. This is the current best available science. Though many scientists suggest these figures are too moderate, these are the ones that have been accepted through the IPCC. And please note that these figures are global and therefore do not say anything about the aspects of equity, which is absolutely necessary to make the Paris Agreement work on a global scale. And that means that richer countries need to get down to zero emissions much faster and then help poorer countries do the same so that people in less fortunate parts of the world can raise their living standards. These numbers also don’t include most feedback loops, non- linear tipping points nor additional warming hidden by toxic air pollution. Most models, however, assume that future generations will, however, somehow be able to suck hundreds of billions of tons of CO2 out of the air with technologies that do not exist today in the scale required - and perhaps never will. The approximate 67 percent chance is the one with the highest odds given by the IPCC. And now we have less than 340 gigatons of CO2 left to emit in that budget to share fairly. And why is it so important to stay below 1.5 degrees Celsius? Because even at 1 degree people are dying from climate change because that is what the united science calls for, to avoid destabi- lizing the climate so that we have the best possible chance to avoid setting off irreversible chain reactions. Every fraction of a degree matters. Since last summer, I’ve been repeating these numbers over and over again in almost every speech. But honestly, I don’t think I have once seen any media outlets or person in power communicate this and what it means. I know you don’t want to report about this. I know you don’t want to talk about this, but I assure you I will continue to repeat these numbers until you do. In a later session, Greta gave a longer speech. Here is the transcript: One year ago I came to Davos and told you that our house is on fire. I said I wanted you to panic. I’ve been warned that telling people to panic about the climate crisis is a very dangerous thing to do. But don’t worry. It’s fine. Trust me, I’ve done this before and I assure you it doesn’t lead to anything. And for the record, when we children tell you to panic, we’re not telling you to go on like before. We’re not telling you to rely on technologies that don’t even ex- ist today at scale and that science says perhaps never will. We are not telling you to keep talking about reaching net-zero emissions or carbon neutrality by cheating and fiddling around with numbers. We are not telling you to offset your emissions by just paying someone else to plant trees in places like Africa while at the same time forests like the Amazon are being slaughtered at an infinitely higher rate. Planting trees is good, of course, but it’s nowhere near enough of what needs to be done, and it cannot replace real mitigation or rewilding nature. Let’s be clear. We don’t need a low-carbon economy. We don’t need to lower emissions. Our emissions have to stop to stay if we are to have a chance to stay below the 1.5 degrees target. And until we have the technologies that at scale can put our emissions to minus then we must forget about net zero we need real zero. Because distant net zero emission targets will mean absolutely nothing if we just continue to ignore the carbon dioxide budget which applies for today, not distant future dates. If high emissions continue like now even for a few years, that remaining budget will soon be completely used up. The fact that the U.S.A. is leaving the Paris accord seems to outrage and worry everyone, and it should. But the fact that we’re all about to fail the commitments you signed up for in the Paris Agreement doesn’t seem to bother the people in power even the least. Any plan or policy of yours that doesn’t include radical emis- sion cuts at the source starting today is completely insufficient for meeting the 1.5-degree or well-below-2-degrees commitments of the Paris Agreement. And again - this is not about right or left. We couldn’t care less about your party politics. From a sustainability perspective, the right, the left, as well as the center, have all failed.
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