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CARBON NEUTRAL POLITICS
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EXTINCTION OF SPECIES - From blue planet to scorched earth because vested interests prevented politicians from putting the brakes on. Economics stopped them thinking about the safety of life on earth, including the future of our children. They'd rather die richer, than live comfortably, gambling with the lives of our offspring and every other species on planet earth.
What is happening on your doorstep is an indicator of what is happening on all the other doorsteps of millions of local kleptocracies all over the world that are empire building as fast as they can go to levy taxes for their coffers based on never ending inflation.
Each one of them is saying that it won't matter if we add to climate change with just a few more houses, a few more factories and a bit more forest clearing. What dummies. These local fiefdoms are killing not only the future for our children, but also indirectly killing men, women and children in displaced locations via desertification where humanitarian aid is sparse. All for a bit more nest feathering.
Each house and factory built in the developed world melts more polar ice, raises sea levels and adds to the area of deserts that cannot be farmed.
SO, YES IT WILL MATTER!
The hardest thing of all is to CHANGE. CHANGE your dirty habits. PLEASE! Stop increasing your Carbon Footprint. Start afresh to combat the Climate Emergency. Build only sustainable homes. Drive electric cars and stop wasting tax dollars trying not to be transparent.
RED FLAG ACTS - Politicians are elected to represent the people, but in fact epitomize the financiers and industrialists who have been exploiting planet earth just as hard as they can, leading to global warming, deserts, acid oceans and rising sea levels as the ice caps melt.
They could not have planned the demise of life on earth if they had planned it, save only for thermonuclear world war three. And that day might not be as far fetched as one might imagine, when the food runs out!
GREEN FLAG POLITICIANS - Give the go ahead for urgent renewable energy projects with state backed finance to make things happen during Research and Innovation stages, through to Innovation Action stage - perhaps with statutory boosts as appropriate. Otherwise,
POLITICAL MADNESS V POLITICAL SANITY
Old School politicians and policy makers have it ingrained in their makeup that we need constant growth. Whereas the opposite is true for a circular economy. We need to preserve the status quo. Better still, be more efficient to get things back to 100% below 1990 levels of greenhouse gases - and even that may not be enough. Local authorities are adding more greenhouse gases at quite an alarming rate - where the UK has declared a Climate Emergency and changed targets by amending the Climate Change Act 2008 from the previous figure of 80%.
INFLATION Vs DEFLATION
Inflation is a process whereby home owners profit by an increase in value of their homes for no work done and property developers also benefit by doing nothing - at the expense of the next generation. This increases the price of property making it difficult for new grass to grow, for youngsters to aspire to low cost housing, the cheapest method of housing being owned homes, rather than rented.
Inflation also means pay rises and goods increasing in price. Inflation is the enemy of sustainability. Politicians love inflation as a mechanism to make free money at the expense of the planet.
The answer to inflation is controlled deflation. Back to a state of equilibrium in harmony with the natural limits of the planet.
Mature property owners are not going to like it. Councils are not going to like it. They love looking at their property artificially rising in value. It makes them feel good. But when a squirrel stores nuts for winter, the nuts don't multiply all by themselves. In a stable economy, the nuts remain at the same value as they were when stored. In an inflationary society, the value of your nut stash decreases, necessitating investment in something that keeps up with the decrease.
To contain the disease that is inflation, we need a controlled descent to 0% inflation. This would be a situation where wages were linked to houses that workers could afford, with food and energy supplies reliably valued the same way.
At that point the only problem is population growth, that demands more of planet earth, than planet earth can afford.
ADMINISTRATIVE INEFFICIENCIES
Another difficult step in the move to a cleaner planet is the adoption of policies that reduce administrative wastages in terms of the spend of public money (taxes) where such expenditure is not warranted, by simply claiming office hours and expenses that are not needed. Recharge budgets should be on a reducing cycle with efficiencies.
PLAYING FOR TIME
Present policies are more aimed at playing politics, rather than getting the job done. This has got to stop if as a species we are to be able to react fast enough to world challenges like climate change and ocean plastic. Politicians pontificate and prevaricate to give industries like the oil giants time to make a killing, when it is their exploitation that is killing the planet - we might add with some justification - in providing stop gap energy to tide us over until we can sustain life with renewables. We need energy security compliant with sustainability. We don't yet have that. It should be a priority.
The responsible thing to do would have been for an exit strategy at the earliest opportunity, not the last possible moment. Why? Because we do not know for sure when the last moment is. PLAY SAFE should be the name of the game. Gamblers have no place in politics.
PROTESTS
Governments must be more proactive in dealing with international crisis. It should not be that the population has to protest to put something as urgent as potential human extinction on the agenda. Only governmental heads have the power to enact laws to force change. There will always be local corruption and empire building authorities that will thumb their noses at adaptation, where they will resist change in favour of customary profiteering and favours for old school chums.
LOCAL EXAMPLE 1 - Wealden's councillors refused planning consent for three wind turbines at a site between Hailsham and Eastbourne. They should have granted permission straight away, not force the locals, who elected these officials to represent their wishes, to lobby and protest. The Secretary of State agreed with the protestors and so we now have three elegant machines working for us in the fight against climate change. This is an example of wasteful politics. This council increased the cost of this installation by forcing the developer to litigate - another example of an incredible waste of taxpayer's money from a council steeped in corruption. There are many other cases like this one in this locality. But what is happening locally, is happening all over the world. Over, and over, and over again.
TAKE THE REIGNS
Policy makers need to apply iron rules, not wishy-washy guidance that allows business as usual either locally or internationally. It is business as usual that has caused the extinction of species, ocean temperature rise and melting of our ice caps. Look to what is happening right on your doorstep and then multiply such failures by your nation's districts. Finally, apply that level of complacency internationally. Then you will begin to understand why we are in this mess.
LOCAL EXAMPLE 2 - Now contrast this development that got the go ahead straight away, with the resistance to producing low carbon energy locally. Not one of these hot houses is climate friendly, despite the clear requirements of the Climate Change Act 2008. No wonder Extinction Rebellion are so angry. Show us the solar panels, solar water heaters, wind turbines or electric vehicle charging points. These houses are not even affordable. The conclusion must be that Wealden District Council are climate criminals. They do not comprehend the situation and have no idea how to plan for your child's future. They just want to feather their nests.
FUNDING POLICIES
Present funding rules prevent many social problems from ever seeing a solution. You need to incentivize social entrepreneurs who are not out to make profits for shareholders or stakeholders.
By way of example, again local, the Charity Commission in the UK do not recognize our Foundation as being charitable. Despite the fact that we are seeking solutions and lobbying for social change in connection with global warming and ocean pollution. We tested the water (we do a lot of water testing) with an application for registration and were given the run around for 150 days, before forcing a letter from this organization giving reasons for not registering us. They wanted us to appeal, possibly leading to a high court judicial review. They knew we could not afford such litigation. This is climate negative politics at its best. This is Great Britain. How is it in your locality? There is nothing "Great" about it, save for being an enormous cluster f*@*.
EU funding policies rule us out as being ineligible to lead not for profit climate and pollution research. It should be the other way around. There is no profit in forcing change or providing potential solutions. Swimming against the tide costs money. Any fool can go with the tide, set up a stall and sell widgets cheaper or fresher than the next guy. But that is just earning a living, and doing this creates millionaires - with all that money typically carrying a high carbon or plastic footprint. Trying to ensure that stall holders sell the right kind of widget or clean up after trading is a loss making situation for us. Supermarkets are an example of very successful stallholders, that need tighter controls.
Dti awards, Horizon 2020 and other initiatives are not designed to support the kind of ideas that solve social problems. Why? The policy writers are given an agenda by politicians who are in cahoots with oil companies and other cartels that do not want change. They want to keep on milking the system they have spent years lobbying for, no matter what harm they are doing to the environment. Yes, the truth hurts. Give us a better explanation and we'll publish that as well.
From 1991 to 1998 an engineer from Sussex applied for grants for an instant refueling system for electric vehicles and service stations to support that technology. The politicians obviously thought they might not rock the boat as far as the fossil fuel gravy train was concerned. Especially during their term of office. All they had to do was keep saying the right things to collect their salaries and expenses. The next minister stepping into their role did the same, and so on. And that is why politicians cannot get things done where innovation is urgently required. This series of letters tends to prove this theory. The British Government knew all about instant refueling and EV service stations as a viable infrastructure as long ago as 1991. Yet here we are with melting ice caps and polar bears in danger of extinction.
The opposition also knew about the technology, but failed to raise the issue in the House of Commons. Yet they had then and have now a duty to reduce global warming, as per the Climate Change Act 2008 that was eventually enacted - only without any plan as to how to achieve the stated objectives. This is an example of what was happening in the United Kingdom. One can imagine that something similar was happening in other G20 nations all over the world. The burning question is: for how much longer will our politicians prevaricate?
NEGATIVE EVIDENCE - The UK Government have known about potential solutions for years, but steadfastly found reasons to refuse funding in favour of sustaining use of the internal combustion engine. A DEMOS application was equally time wasting for the engineers, who in the end gave up, but not until 1996 when a SMART AWARD application was also refused, in this case perhaps not so smart on the part of the policy makers. In 2020 there are renewed calls on this topic. Unfortunately, the engineers concerned are now concentrating on solar and wind energy for ocean transport. The lesson is clear, support your champions as that step up the the podium. Do not let businesses with existing technology to protect get into the chain to put the brakes on. That ruled out auto makers of course.
It is staggering that with cartridge exchange technology allowing recharging of EVs in less than a minute in 1996, and with a low cost service station design for load leveling on the drawing board, that the technology was passed over. In our view what that really means is that the Governments were not that bothered. Maybe it suited them to pursue dead ends to keep IC vehicles going for their influential political supporters. Who knows. For sure the level of apathy has sparked mass protests again in 2019.
COMMONWEALTH - The same policies were being pursued all over the globe by Commonwealth countries that appeared to be either taking their steer from the UK or maybe it was just a general G20 agenda - for sure they were against batteries in electric cars - but history shows us that this was the way to go, now with battery electrics being prevalent, having ousted hydrogen and fuel cells that was at the time the favoured technology. That does not mean fuel cells and hydrogen might not one day make a come back. It just means that the energy efficiency cycle of battery EVs is better at this time.
Where Governments get it wrong, they 'U' turn. Each 'U' turn costs the people millions of tax dollars, in turn generating more carbon dioxide and methane to put right what was a policy boob. The CO2 is from running the offices, the methane is from the food consumed while putting things right.
Ministers and Secretaries of State appear not to be qualified for the posts they sometimes hold, bouncing from one position to another, without making any real contribution to the problems that such positions of trust are supposed to deal with. In the UK, Secretaries of State routinely change posts having made no real progress as they pursue a political career, mostly leaving behind a situation much the same as they found it - such as potholed roads that are dangerous to the public.
What then is the chance of dealing with climate change and ocean plastic waste? If politicians cannot arrange to put some tarmac in holes as they appear despite gigantic revenue from road tax, we have little chance of any real action on other pressing matters, where they can simply bury their heads in the sand. It may help to reserve taxes for the reason it was introduced - in the interests of transparency. Allowing taxes to cross boundaries is a recipe for disaster, destroying accountability. Policy makers seem to love that, to smooth over their blunders. We must stop hiding mistakes. Admit them and move on as efficiently as possible. Sweeping errors under the carpet costs far more then telling the truth.
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Performance tables may help. What problems did politicians face on assuming a role, and what did they do about it?
One of the secrets to an advanced society where all Governments work towards a common goal is to adopt carbon neutral policies. These can even be computer programs with feedback loops built in, so cutting out the need for oratory, endless meetings and debating, where in reality each country is empire building and trying to gain financially or geographically, to get one up one their neighbours. Feedback loops would constantly monitor the performance of policies or statute, suggesting tweaks to improve performance.
Politicians do not react that quickly. Old laws prevent advancement, causing injustice and further wastages.
Typically, old thinking based on historic aggression is one of the grass root causes of public spend that is to prevent another country gaining in one form or another. Such aggression is aimed at obtaining minerals, materials, energy or food, or taking control of such mineral wealth, to include water as an asset. Oil was the main honey pot, for energy security, the cause of many conflicts. Renewable energy moves the goal posts, providing cheap energy for all and potential peace in the making as per SDG 7.
Food and energy security is vital, along with balanced trading, where for so long sanctions have been used to combat industrial advantages of another country that may be advancing in terms of technology. Food security is another issue, unrelated to climate change, except where acid oceans are helping to reduce fish stocks that are needed to feed a good proportion of the world.
By understanding the need to cooperate to prevent human extinction, traditional political competition becomes of lesser importance in the quest for survival.
THE G20 HEADS OF STATE A - Z
CHANGE OR DIE
The dinosaurs could not adapt in time, they were cumbersome creatures that needed an energy intake to support their mass rendering them vulnerable in food security terms. This is just like our present economy, based on giant corporations, taxation at every level to support the state and money lenders, living off the sweat of an honest man's toil - as unearned income. There are too many chiefs riding on the backs of the workers like immoral leaches in society. This is unsustainable and it's all based on inequitable loans for overpriced housing (and cars), that should perhaps be index linked in a fair society.
Dinosaur politicians should be replaced with representatives who understand sustainability and what a circular economy means. The dogs that grew up accepting fossil fuels and nuclear power as being normal, are unlikely to be able to grasp new tricks that are alien to them. They will be unwilling to change, rather seeking to resist obvious solutions to those who do not have investments in old technology - so think more clearly. These relics of overheated economics based on continuous growth, caused global warming. With only one planet to exploit, growth could never be continuous. These were hollow election promises for prosperity, based on borrowing, that led us to the brink. World economics should be based on just the planet we have.
Divide the planet by the geographical area of each administration, gives each Government their equilibrium targets. There is only so much sunshine per meter, roughly 1,100 watts per square meter in space, reducing to 1,000 watts by the time it hits earth in a straight line. Latitude dictates further transmission losses. But, even with such reductions there is ample energy for every country to become energy self-sufficient.
The Cleaner Ocean Foundation operates as a think tank to promote ideas and technology for a brighter future. Governments around the world have been putting out calls for proposals to alleviate global warming since the 1990s. They have not been successful in fostering development of what we need to prevent the extinction of species or prevent ocean levels from rising. They have put the burden on the shoulders of industry instead of driving change with statute and funding to push for cleaner living.
OUR (SUGGESTED) SIX STEPS TOWARD A COOLER PLANET
1. TRANSPORT: Phase out polluting vehicles. Governments aim to end the sale of new petrol, and diesel vehicles by 2040 but have no infrastructure plan to support such ambition. Such infrastructure should exceed the performance of fossil fuel filling stations, prolong EV battery life and provide power grids with a measure of load leveling. Any such system should seek to obviate the provision of millions of fast charge points where implementation could prove to be a logistical nightmare. This may involve international agreement as to energy storage format and statute to steer car makers to collaborate in part in a world of competition.
Marine transport can be carbon neutral given the right policies, with phased transition in specific stages such as not to unduly penalize present investment in LNG shipping and other recent MARPOL compliant IC powered vessels. Future cargo vessel should be at least in part powered by renewable energy, on the road to zero carbon, making allowances for technology catchup.
Air travel powered by kerosene should attract hefty mitigation offset, where low carbon alternatives should be encouraged.
2. RENEWABLES: Renewable energy should replace carbon-based fuels (coal, oil and gas) in our electricity for homes, factories, heating and transport. Coal and nuclear power plants should be phased out.
3. HOUSING: On site micro or macro generation is the best option, starting with new build homes that are both affordable and sustainable by design to replace crumbling housing stocks. Encourage building in timber to provide carbon lock from a renewable natural resource.
4. AGRICULTURE: We need to grow more trees to absorb carbon emissions from a growing population, air travel, and to build new homes. We should promote reductions in food waste and eating of foods that use less energy to produce. Educate children on these matters in schools and via campaigns such as no meat Mondays, should be part of ordinary study.
5. INDUSTRY: Factories should be aiming for solar heating and onsite renewable energy generation. EV parking and even service facilities should be part of new industrial estates as part of any building permissions.
6. POLITICS: - National governing bodies need to adopt rules to eliminate administrative wastages, to include scaling down spending on war machines, increasing spend on educating the public and supporting sustainable social policies that mesh with other cultures. This includes fostering policies and making funds available to close links in the technology chain to make up for lost time. Kleptocratic empire building must cease in the search for natural equilibrium.
CLIMATE ACTIVIST - Greta Thunberg is a 15 year old schoolgirl who knows more about climate change than most of the United Nations delegates put together. That may not be not quite true, but she knows that we have to act now and stop talking about acting. Hence, she knows more in practical terms. Because Greta has no investments in fossil fuels she can see clearly. Once finance and investments comes into play - as with most politicians - they develop climate myopia (Climopia). This is a disease that lodges in the brain and makes the eyes see what the bankers and industrialists want them to see. It is a sort of Pied Piper effect with money luring otherwise sane people to do nothing to upset the gravy train. Climopia prevents politicians from acting to save future generations, where all they can think about is their wallets and the bank accounts of existing stakeholders, ignoring the future of their children.
Miss Thunberg wants the media to tell it straight and tell if more often so as to help politicians with Climopia think and see clearly. Two politicians with serious advanced Climopia are Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. The diagnosis for this pair of dinosaurs is Criminal Climopia, otherwise known as insanity. Apparently, the richer you are the more myopic your outlook. A proximity to oil wells and beef-burgers also has an effect - both of course major contributors to global warming. Beef carries a risk of Mad Cow Disease, that may have a link to Climopic Insanity. Greta is a star Climate Changer. On November 30, over 15,000 boys and girls went on strike from school in every capital city and over 20 regional centres across Australia. On March 15, they are going even bigger and inviting adults to join them in solidarity for a Global Climate Strike. We're in!
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POLICIES - Current planning guidance and statute allow local authorities to build what makes money, wherever they want, threatening the natural world - regardless of the harm they are causing. This beautiful area of the Sussex countryside could soon be built over or become a scorched desert stemming from the greed of local politicians. As we say, look to your doorstep and you will find it is happening where you live - and you are powerless to do anything about it. Because local civil servants are immune from prosecution. Councils need to be subject to a Climate Audit. We also suggest a general compliance audit, where in one case planning consent was granted for 70 houses without any Impact Assessment on this view across an area of outstanding natural beauty. That is of course unlawful and/or an abuse of process. The then Secretary of State, James Brokenshire, was advised, but declined to call in the application.
1995 COP
1,
BERLIN, GERMANY
2020 COP 26/CMP 16/CMA 4 TBA Will they have applied the brakes?
LINKS & REFERENCE
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/climate/what-is-climate-change.html
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