The Train-Wreck of Climate-Change Mitigation
Politics / Climate Change Dec 21, 2019 - 05:35 PM GMTBy: Mark_Blair
‘We strongly believe that no country should have to sacrifice their economic prosperity or energy security in pursuit of environmental sustainability.’ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211467X19300677
Climate-change mitigation this coming decade will be a train-wreck of unparalleled proportions. Let’s look over The Players:
One: The reality of the utter present exhaustion of the global financial and political model. The elephant in the room.
Two: the climate-change-denial lobbyists, funded by the extractive industries, particularly in the U.S. and Australia, who have effectively stymied mitigation for decades.
Three: the excesses of the left, like LGBTQI theory, have convinced millions that anything the left is involved in -- like mitigation -- is nonsense/a springboard for collectivism.
Four: ‘post-parliamentarism’: non-violent civil disobedience – Gandhi, the 60’s civil-rights movement – will increase until it constitutes a ‘parallel power system.’
Five: certain mid-term technical limitations to the provision of all-renewables ‘base-load capacity’ for, say, a first-world city of twenty millions. And here we’ll add difficulties such as the mining of minerals like lithium, needed for the production of the batteries.
Six: the time factor: only war gives a government a mandate to profoundly re-tool its economy. There is an astounding gap between, on the one hand, how much time governments think/are telling people we have to shift to all-renewables, and on the other hand, how quickly the onset of climate change could create, for example, waves of refugees that would overwhelm whole nations.
Seven: (resurgent) nationalism, principally in the China and the U.S. ‘Sociopathic’ is a very reasonable term to explain how single-mindedly certain nations will drive their economies at the expense of an already exhausted global environment.
Eight: The Twilight of The Boomers, the ‘petro-masculinists,’ who are simultaneously stymying change and headed to The Twilight Home.
Nine: the forthcoming stoush between pro-growth and post-growth economics.
Nine: hyperinflationary amounts of eco-stimulus.
So let’s analyse:
the time-frame holds the upper hand – ask Australians, dithering while their nation burns. Politics can’t hold Nature at bay.
Massive amounts of funding will be thrown at the shift to renewables. But the left is exaggerating how quick and easy that shift will be – time-frame again!
There is just no underestimating the centrality of China (and the O.B.O.R. nations). Western nations will be simultaneously crowing about their all-renewables goals and stocking their supermarket shelves with stiff made in coal-powered China.
Refugees? Here’s some arithmetic you don’t see. Europe blew itself up politically with less than five million refugees. But if the time-frame catches us out, we could easily see waves of ten or twenty times that. Digest this, readers: just one percent of world population is 75 millions, which is 15 times the humanitarian exception.
It’s hard to imagine any reasonable (modern) person not admitting in principle that the nation of Tanzania, for example, with per capita emissions of Practically None, should suffer climate change equally with the nations that produced the emissions. But what a problem to solve! It strikes me to say that if collectivism – Stalinism – had never existed in the past, then we’d have a ‘one off’ rationale for accepting it to deal with climate change. But with history as it is . . .
And the markets this coming decade?
There will be a lot of money sloshing about – a lot!! And any industry involved in moving away from hydrocarbons will be a good place to be, and any industry stubbornly sticking with hydrocarbons will be a bad place to be. But the general operating environments will undoubtedly become far more complex than they even are now.
Mark Blair has a decades-long background in libertarian theory and activism, and is now focused solely and permanently on the politics of climate-change mitigation.
Copyright © 2019 Mark Blair - All Rights Reserved
Disclaimer: The above is a matter of opinion provided for general information purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. Information and analysis above are derived from sources and utilising methods believed to be reliable, but we cannot accept responsibility for any losses you may incur as a result of this analysis. Individuals should consult with their personal financial advisors.
© 2005-2022 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.
