A Little Book About Climate Change by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

Individual Adaptation

We’ve looked briefly above at what the individual might do in the case of sea-level rise, flood and food shortages. These are stark choices. For those who have the means to choose, the choice may have to be finding somewhere to live that is high enough to be out of harm’s way, or otherwise to seek refuge in another region or another country. It’s the severity of these choices that really brings home the importance of trying to tackle climate change now rather than have to face these awful choices at some point in the future.

A few points remain that have a direct bearing on an individual’s circumstances.

Drought

We’ve noted above that drought is an increasing problem as a result of climate change. There are several reasons for this. An increasingly affluent population (and the increasing demands on agriculture) means that we have a greater requirement for water. Some areas rely on the melting of snow and ice in order to supply rivers,

which

in

turn

provide

water

to

populations downstream. The final reason is 54

A Little Book about Climate Change most pertinent to our discussions here. Most rainfall gets ‘wasted’, so far as the human use of water is concerned. As we’ve seen above, the rain that falls in rural areas drains away quickly because of the lack of trees, and then floods lowlying areas downstream. Meanwhile, the rain that hits towns and cities runs off quickly into surface water drains, then it is taken away into rivers (where it may add to flooding) or into the sea. (Or sometimes the water may go into the foul sewer systems, so if there is a flood then things are even worse because of the dirtier and more polluted water.) Even in places with quite high rainfall therefore, it is worth collecting water from roofs and storing it for later use in small gardens or for washing and flushing toilets. With some filtration (and/or boiling) it could be safe enough to drink. An underground tank could have a pump to raise water to a header tank that will then feed taps and appliances within a house or a business premises. The pump may be electric, or just a hand-operated pump. This is a relatively simple option, certainly suitable for the ‘off-gridder’, but also for the more conventional household or building.

Heatwaves

Although climate change means generally a warmer world, the disruption to weather patterns can cause severe cold as well as heatwaves. We’ve seen, in the last chapter, that insulation and having an alternative source of heat are good measures for saving energy and coping with any disruption to energy supply.

We can also see these as adaptation measures 55

A Little Book about Climate Change for countries that might experience extreme cold events in the future.

It is the heatwave however that is likely to become the more common extreme weather event in the future — especially if average global temperature rise goes beyond two degrees. We can anticipate, at least for relatively wealthy countries, a steep rise in the use of air-conditioning. The energy used for this would unfortunately be contributing to the problem that it is trying to solve. And in high-density urban areas the heat displaced by cooling systems, coupled with the heat absorbed by buildings and hard surfaces just adds to the problems.

The traditional architecture of many Middle-Eastern and North African countries was developed to cope with high temperatures and we can still take a lot of lessons from them today. Simple measures such as narrow streets to provide shade, small windows, shutters on the sunlit areas of buildings, internal courtyards with fountains and passive ventilation systems can regulate temperature without having to resort to technology. Some areas can also benefit from using trees for shading and having a lot of nature around our buildings can also help to regulate temperature.

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A Little Book about Climate Change Different Pleasures

The modern home, at least in wealthy nations, is bristling with TV screens, computers, laptops, mobile phones, numerous household appliances, central heating and possibly air-conditioning.

Outside, or in the garage, there may be two, three or four cars. The family will take several long car rides a week, either for work, to fetch supplies or for pleasure. They will likely go on holiday a few times a year, possibly by long-haul flights to other continents. This is the lifestyle to which many people aspire. They feel they have worked hard to obtain this level of comfort. Both adults in the household may be working full-time jobs with lengthy hours in order to maintain the level of income needed to finance this kind of life. The discussions about low-tech and off-grid housing in the earlier chapters will probably just seem absurd to such people. They might well feel that they would be ashamed to live in such a way.

If the reader has some concern for the planet then they may describe the high energy, fast-paced

lifestyle

as

greedy,

wasteful

or

irresponsible. As concerns over climate change and the related pressure on natural resources and loss of bio-diversity grow, then we are likely 57

A Little Book about Climate Change to all feel more guilty over our lifestyles, even whilst it is difficult to change.

Back in the Introduction we noted three broad categories or groupings of people that are relevant to our discussions — government, business

and

citizens

(or

consumers).

Governments may have policies and initiate laws to tackle our problems. Businesses may well have an environmental ethic. As citizens, we may choose to try to influence government policy and the behaviour of businesses directly, through campaigning and activism, including protest. But as I have suggested in the Introduction, the biggest influence on both government and business is through the choices we make as consumers. So if we are to curtail the excesses of a high energy, high-tech, materialistic lifestyle, we need to think about what makes people aspire to such a life and how that might change.

The elements that make up an alternative lifestyle are sometimes described as ‘simplicity’.

The simple way of life might involve some or all of the following: Cooking food from scratch. A mainly vegetarian or vegan diet with locally-sourced food. Walking and cycling instead of driving. Repair and recycling. Cutting down or eliminating technology, especially phones and computers. Taking holidays locally. And also, incorporating some of the energy-saving and off-grid measures described in earlier chapters.

There is a lot to be said for this way of life. In financial terms, the household described at the head of this chapter could perhaps live a simple lifestyle and only need to work two days a week on the same salary in order to meet their living 58

A Little Book about Climate Change costs. Then there would be plenty of time for walking, gardening, sports, art and craftwork, music, meeting with friends, slow cooking and all the other activities people say they are currently too busy to do. This is what I am describing as ‘different pleasures’ — it’s all about those things that most people, at least in their more reflective moments, say they would love to do, if only they had the time! Could we convince people that this is a better way to live?

Well, first of all, it’s no use preaching at people that their energy-intensive, materialistic lifestyle is trashing the planet. Most people are already aware of that by now, at least in part of their minds, but their hearts are currently telling them just to go on living to try to maximise their pleasure and show others how successful they are. Perhaps they rationalise this by saying they are trying to give their children the best possible start in life. Or that one person won’t make a difference to the Earth’s problems.

Or that it’s the government’s job to fix things.

Or China needs to change first. Or even that it is too late to save the planet so they might as well go on enjoying themselves whilst they still can. The simple lifestyle described above may well be mocked and ridiculed. The ridicule is the way that some people divert their own attention away from the need for change.

In this chapter, we’re going a bit beyond what individuals and households might do to address the problems we face. We’re asking what might be done to convince others of the need to change, and my contention here is that it’s through different ways that we understand pleasure that change could be brought about.

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A Little Book about Climate Change So, I’d argue, one aspect of being a climate activist is to tackle this question of pleasure.

What then can the aspiring eco-warrior do to convince people, at this critical individual and personal level, that change would be a good thing? From the above, once again, the first message is surely not to preach to people on a personal level. (We can keep our political campaigning,

activism

or

business

ethic

separate from our personal encounters with other folk.) Then secondly, if we believe in the simple lifestyle and the different pleasures it offers, we need to be living it ourselves — living the message. That way, people might just get curious and ask us how we seem to always be relaxed and happy whilst apparently doing very little work! We will then have earned the right to speak and can describe how we’ve gone about changing our own lives, but still without voicing any condemnation of others.

We also need to keep in mind that people usually make changes for personal reasons rather than because of their commitment to a cause or an ideology. Whilst we might say that we are adopting a simple lifestyle for the sake of the planet, actually it might more likely be because we find the constant bleeping, clicking and sheer stupidity of modern gadgets just really irritating! Or because we would actually rather spend time walking, swimming, camping or doing artwork, music or writing for the sheer pleasure of these activities and not waste our life in a boring job just to make money. So it is a bit disingenuous to describe the high-earning, high energy, high-tech family as selfish or profligate whilst we are in our ivory tower of 60

A Little Book about Climate Change pious

and

self-righteous

‘sustainability’.

Actually, whilst there are certainly some greedy and selfish people, we are all self-serving and we all have an image of ourselves as ‘doing the right thing’ individually and for our children. It’s just that the simple lifestyle is the one that offers us a long-term hope for the future. So let’s not give the suggestion that simplicity is the more ‘moral’ choice. Everyone’s choices could be described as ‘moral’ or ‘selfish’

depending on the perspective.

And this is not to disparage ‘stuff’ in general.

Arts and crafts, along with beautiful buildings and gardens are still stuff. We are surely right to lavish care and attention on these as part of human culture as well as just for sheer pleasure.

But our relationship with stuff — whether the high-tech gadget, the mass-produced product or the hand-crafted artefact — is complex. So again, moralising too much can distract us.

It’s certainly difficult to change suddenly. The prospect of a greatly reduced income can seem daunting and likewise the thought of living without a mobile phone or a laptop close at hand can feel like losing our identity! But once a few changes have been accomplished, then further steps get easier. Paradoxical as it may seem, it’s often the case that we have fewer money worries when we have less money. And we can have more meaningful contact with others when there is only limited time given over to social media, text or email.

One way to initiate change is to adopt what I describe as the ‘stay-in-bed’ approach to tackling climate change. I’m not exactly sure 61

A Little Book about Climate Change where I have got this phrase from, but the general idea may be attributed to Tom Hodgkinson, editor of The Idler magazine. The idea is that as things break down or wear out, don’t bother to replace them. If they can be repaired, then yes, go with the repair. But if, as a householder or a business, life can go on without whatever it is that’s broken, then all the better. That way, before too long, the car will be gone, then the TV, then the lawn mower, and so on. The benefit of this approach is that some people (men especially) can be obsessed with gadgets. As such, when they ‘go green’, it means to them that they just replace one set of gadgets

for

another.

 

Even

if

energy

consumption is thereby reduced, there is still a lot of stuff being produced and the materialistic mindset is not really tackled at all. Letting things wear out, on the other hand, allows for a much healthier attitude to stuff, and I think this in turn can lead to the broader values of simplicity that I have tried to outline above.

The ‘stay-in-bed’ strategy leads us into another way of looking at things — sorting out what are our true priorities. That way, it’s easier to let go of the things that break or that we just never use or are in the way and to focus instead on what’s truly important to us. A person might find most satisfaction through their work — it is a vocation for them, not just a job — so they will willingly make sacrifices to follow their career. Or it may be the pursuit of art or music, which has up until now been more of a hobby than a vocation. When speaking to others on a personal level, this is a great approach. We can ask: What really floats their boat? What would they do if money was no object and they need 62

A Little Book about Climate Change not work for a living? Then we can encourage people to follow that dream with all their energy! Thus, we are meeting people — as I’ve suggested above — at the level of their deepest pleasures, rather than trying to convince them for moral reasons. This is a very positive message to offer people, as opposed to criticising their lifestyle and making uninvited suggestions about how they might change!

Over time, trying to focus on what’s really important to us will lead to long-term rather than short-term thinking. And that is when we start to align with the concerns of the planet that I have been describing in this book. In the broadest of perspectives, tackling climate change, resource depletion and bio-diversity loss is long-term thinking.

The reader may object at this point, by saying that an individual’s life ambition may be to become a billionaire via the oil industry or some such counter-example, and therefore suggesting to them that they ‘follow their dream’ is actually a terrible idea! The criticism is accepted. But in turn I point out that if someone’s life goal is so demonstrably bad then no argument is likely to dissuade them anyway — we might as well just wish them luck in their endeavours! Challenging their ambition is likely to make them even more determined to do what we find objectionable.

The reader might further object that even if someone’s goals in life are relatively benign, then still, waiting for them to come around to long-term thinking and recognising how this fits in with the concerns of the planet might be a very long wait indeed! In fact, that day may 63

A Little Book about Climate Change never come. I suggest however that an encounter where we discuss our dreams and aspirations for life is worthwhile in and of itself.

It builds trust, which may allow us to share our own visions for the future. This is much better than launching into trying to persuade someone to switch to an electric car or replace their gas boiler with a heat pump!

In summary then, the would-be eco-warrior is best to lead by example and be genuinely happy in their chosen lifestyle before saying anything that might be about trying to get folk to change.

Above all else, the danger is to come across as pious and self-righteous! If someone is thinking that humanity is hopelessly lost, greedy and stupid, then that attitude is likely to show through, and our words and manner will condemn us. If, on the other hand, we really believe that most people are full of potential, trying to do their best and generally keen on fairness, kindness, loyalty and looking after their families, then we will have a good start at engaging with people. Provided we have this attitude then talking about people’s dreams and aspirations is going to bring out the best in people. In short, it’s a personal approach rather than trying to present people with objective arguments, or worse, moral pronouncements.

And it helps to be very clear in our own minds whether we like people and think that humanity is worthwhile! If not, then anything we might do is likely to appear disingenuous.

Getting to know our pleasures is not necessarily just so we can indulge them more effectively! It is to know ourselves better, so that we can be more rational towards the problems that face us.

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A Little Book about Climate Change If we can understand our genuine drives and motivations then we are better placed to understand what policies are likely to be effective.

A final thought then is that the solutions we need are not so much about changing human nature (which might take thousands of years), but about changing the human story — the stories

that

cultures,

communities

and

individuals have about what’s good and worthwhile in human life. This, I think, is less of a challenge. So if our hearts are in the right place we can draw people out and into a conversation about what makes life good and worthwhile for them. We can level with each other with our own ‘climate stories’ — about our hopes and fears for the future. That way, everyone can be included — and really, so far as the climate is concerned — it cannot be any other way.

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A Little Book about Climate Change 66

A Little Book about Climate Change Polity

The last chapter focused on our personal relations with people and our shared interests in pleasure and trying to realise our goals in life.

I’ve suggested in this book that it’s the personal life of citizens that is the real driver for change.

If we, as citizens, live in different ways then business and government will want to change their ways in turn. Otherwise the politician will not get re-elected and the manufacturer’s products will remain on the shelves.

In the last chapter I’ve said that campaigning and activism are ways that we might try to influence government and business directly. In this chapter, I want to deal briefly with a further alternative. Instead of just waiting for politicians to catch up, could we change the way we govern ourselves and thereby bring about new laws and regulations to tackle climate change and address our problems more quickly?

The activist group Extinction Rebellion, amongst others, has suggested ‘citizens’ assemblies’.

This involves choosing a group of citizens by lot, who then come together to deliberate a particular topic. If, for instance, assemblies were set up to discuss climate change, they might arrive at solutions that have come from 67

A Little Book about Climate Change the grass roots of people’s lives. The government would then be obliged to implement the decisions reached (or at least, this is the hope). Or it may be that normal government is superseded altogether and we just have the assemblies.

Would this be better, or worse?

Well, critics of such proposals might suggest that citizens are more interested in their own personal well-being and less interested in the long-term benefit and protection of society at large. They would argue that people are not good enough for this type of democracy and that we would be better sticking with the current system. For all its faults, such folk might argue, representative democracy at least takes some account of society at large and the protection of the planet.

Proponents of citizens’ assemblies, on the other hand, suggest that once ordinary people are given the opportunity to take some time to think seriously about a particular issue, they show remarkable foresight and wisdom.

Who is right?

It would be good to at least give citizens’

assemblies a go — and there have been experiments in many countries that have shown encouraging results. We could counter the critics by saying that rather than people not being good enough for this type of decision-making, we are just not attuned to it. But I think this is changing. The ways groups organise themselves these days show a lot of 68

A Little Book about Climate Change the qualities of genuine shared decision-making

— making sure everyone is heard, giving everyone an equal say, openness, tolerance, acceptance, accountability — these are the subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) shifts from the old style of top-down governance.

Even if big government does not undergo such a radical shift, the methods of shared decision-making are being practised in campaigning and activist groups. So these changes are being embedded in us and I believe they are positive steps for the future.

Therefore, as well as activism that is aimed directly at solving climate change, resource depletion and loss of bio-diversity, an activism that aims at political change is also a worthwhile strategy. It is less direct, certainly, but the wider changes that a more deliberative form of democracy

could

bring

about

are

very

significant. Social justice, climate change, bio-diversity, resources, capitalism and democracy are all inextricably linked.

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A Little Book about Climate Change 70

A Little Book about Climate Change Dystopia?

I’ve tried to focus on the small-scale and the practical in this book. The problems that face us can seem vast, and also often remote and abstract. We might respond by switching off, or feeling despair. Young people today are often implicitly landed with the task of having to save the planet, because of the way the issues are presented to us. This is an intolerable burden.

It is no wonder that there can often be a sense of hopelessness. And the stories of the future we are given — in novels, films and TV — are often dystopian visions. Are we really heading for a collapse in civilisation, where conditions on Earth are so bad that only a small remnant of humanity survives — maybe in Greenland, or Antarctica — and perhaps another remnant has set up on Mars or the Moon? That’s often the ultimatum presented to us by a lot of otherwise well-meaning activists and climate experts, and also, as I‘ve said above, by our novelists and film-makers.

So in this chapter I want to ask, how likely is it that such a dystopia will come about?

Earlier in the book, I’ve described the main mitigation and adaptation measures we could 71

A Little Book about Climate Change take. We are well behind in our mitigation measures, but there is still at least a few years left when mitigation alone would be enough to turn things around. After the next few years though, if we don’t do enough on the mitigation front, we will have reached a tipping point where the climate is changing so rapidly because of nature that it is essentially out of control. Then our focus would have to be mainly on adaptation.

The critical question for us then would be, how much will the climate change, just by natural processes, before it settles down into a new stable state? And that question leads us to ask how much adaptation we would need to make in order to be able to live in the new stable state?

(I’m ignoring here the benefits, or otherwise, of implementing one or more of the geo-engineering measures described earlier in the book. I’m sceptical about these ever being tried out on a large enough scale to make much of a difference to the basic mitigation/adaptation discussion presented in earlier chapters.) How much then would the climate change if we largely fail in our mitigation efforts? The science seems to suggest anywhere between around four and six degrees above pre-industrial levels, although as more research takes place, the figures vary. How much adaptation would it take for humans to go on living reasonably okay in such a world? Well, it has to be said, a huge amount of adaptation! But is it possible?

Certainly,

yes!

 

The

difference

between

mitigation and adaptation (and the reason I have emphasised these terms so much in the 72

A Little Book about Climate Change book) is the different mindsets they each involve. Mitigation is to try to ward off a problem that might, to our immediate senses, just never happen. With adaptation, we can already see the problems — the storms, droughts and heatwaves — and so we know it is time to roll up our sleeves and get on with the work that needs to be done.

The other big thing to say about dystopian visions of the future is simply that we need to replace them with alternative visions. Our story-tellers need to show us ways we can live happily on an Earth potentially very different from the one we have known up until now. That way, they will not be confronting people with an ultimatum — change your ways or this is your fate! Instead we’ll see that all that is good in humanity can be protected and nourished.

There is a new genre of fiction emerging called

‘solar punk’, which takes up this vision. (The term, ‘solar punk’ is coined in opposition to

‘cyber punk’, which usually involves dystopian high-tech futures.)

This brings us to our final chapter. Hope!

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A Little Book about Climate Change 74

A Little Book about Climate Change Hope

Sometimes an argument is presented to us that says ordinary people have no choice but to live unsustainably because of their political or economic circumstances. For instance, it is said that even a homeless person in the United States has a higher carbon footprint than the Earth could sustain (largely because of the energy use of night shelters, soup kitchens, medical facilities, etc.). Or, the peasant farmer in many countries has no choice but to fell ancient forest and plant cash crops for the consumption of richer nations. Or the farmer in a wealthy nation has no choice but to use pesticides, artificial fertilisers and large amounts of machinery, otherwise they simply could not continue farming. But whilst I don’t for a moment want to detract from the difficulties of such scenarios, and hundreds more like them, I don’t think the problems are insurmountable.

The argument goes that situations such as the ones I have described above require ‘structural’

change in order to be solved. In other words, big politics, legislation, and perhaps funding, taxation, and trade agreements, such that individuals are not ‘compelled’ to make a living in such a way that the climate and environment suffer. But we can see that often this does not 75

A Little Book about Climate Change work,

even

where

governments

make

substantial efforts to implement the structural changes I‘ve described.

Instead, I think that hope lies with individuals, families and small communities. That has been my focus in this book. I think we are already changing our stories such that we see that living in a changed climate is the future we are all facing. And now that the crisis is more or less upon us, I think that we are finding hope. And I think the hope on offer is not a burden to us.

The changes I have described earlier in the book could be summarised as, ‘slow down’, ‘keep things simple’ and ‘stay local’. All of that is immediately within our grasp — it does not rely on action by government, or buying a lot of renewable gadgets. The benefits are the

‘different pleasures’ I have described — less need to spend long hours just trying to make a living — therefore, more time to do the stuff that really interests us, be it sport, crafts, music, writing, or just being with friends and family. More time and space for nature. More time, and good reasons, to cook meals slowly from scratch. Even time to build our own houses and grow some of our own food. All of the above can also be part of building resilient communities that could self-organise, should the need arise, because of severe weather events or other disruptions in the future. We would no longer have a precarious set of individuals, totally reliant on the state and the massive infrastructures of global communications and supply chains. We could have communities that can self-govern and who could take great pride and pleasure in their autonomy. That would be a world that is truly rich!

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A Little Book about Climate Change So the problems we face now are not just annoying issues that we need to get out of the way so that we can get back to working 50

hours a week, spending many more hours in traffic jams, eating junk food, never speaking to our neighbours and being too tired to do any of the stuff that we really want to do, because we have to pay for all the stuff that allows us to work the 50 hours a week… And so on, around and around. Is this any way to live, even if we did stop climate change and all the other problems? No. Instead those problems are the way in to radical change and a radical hope!

The changes we need to make are possible and within our power. Let’s be that radical change!

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