Welcome to 2012 - What Do We Need To Be Doing?

Well, 2012 is just around the corner, there are 7 Billion people and I'm not sure our Leaders actually understand the meaning of the word sustainable?

It's interesting that in Western Europe, and to a certain extent, North America, the current economic woes are supposed to be banished by "growth".

But this isn't sustainable; however, like it or not Economics now underpins the human race, but the significant element missing from the current version of Economics is the Environment.

Of course, it's not actually missing; we are choosing to ignore it, either through ignorance and/or expediency. And that includes me!

Personally I put the blame for this squarely onto the Economist fraternity, who should be advising our Leaders that Economics is holistic and that the Environmental element cannot be completely avoided, although as we know, it can be ignored.... for a while.

So my Mission is to inform as many people as possible that we need to factor in remediation whenever human activity has an impact on the Environment; not as an afterthought when it's potentially too late.

Fortunately, basic Economics provides the best solution..

Take the fossil-fuel electricity generation business, which puts millions of tonnes of pollutants into the environment....

The cost of removing these pollutants, in order to maintain a "neutral environment", must be included in the cost of the fuel.

Which today, would mean that fossil fuels should be very very expensive.

This simple economic principle seems to cause many people to get alarmed and fret about the cost of petrol/gasoline, electricity etc. Which is partly where the politics comes in and makes a mess...

Sadly, with Economic Growth being the predominant focus and the population growing at the rate it is; Politics is likely to become increasingly dysfunctional, which is why it is very important for Scientists & Economists to agree that all our activities need to be implemented within a global, holistic framework, meaning..

Economics Must Include the Environment
Politicians need to understand this simple principle and then legislate accordingly.

For example:
Globally, within 5 years, the cost of removing pollution from fossil-fuel burning engines must be included into the cost of the fuel AND this cost will be made available to (new) pollution remediation industries.

In this way, simple Economics will give rise to less environmentally polluting processes and energy sources, whilst moderating the Environmental impact using the pollution taxes.

That's a Win-Win and it doesn't need an unrealistic change in our current usage of products, energy, or lifestyle.

There will be millions of people who will disagree with this and trot out the usual: "It can't be done", or "It won't work".

I've seen quite a few esteemed science folk advising Politicians on what can be "politically" achieved, i.e. without risking being voted out at the next election (this is very bad science in my view, and may well explain why we in this mess).

It can be done and the more people discussing the simple "Economics Must Include the Environment" message; the more chance that Politicians will come to understand this is a "no-brainer" which everybody, once they understand it; will support.

Help spread the simple message....

Hopefully people in Pakistan, Thailand, Bangladesh and all others living in low-lying or recently flooded areas can help to get this message broadcast and understood?

Best Wishes for 2012

Wilted Greenery

"Even avoiding deadlock would be and acheivement"

This is The Economist talking about the UN's "annual climate-change circus" in the week commencing 5th December, 2011, before the conference started

Take a look at the whole article and see what you think?

http://www.economist.com/node/21540996

It appears, according to The Economist, that:

"the European Union, as the only large industrial power (that is) willing to undertake a second five year "commitment period""

which is interesting, as I'll try to explain later.

Secondly:

"a delegate from a powerful developing country says that the politics of the negotiations are, unfortunately "much more important" than climate-change."

In summary:

The Approaches Adopted So Far Have & Are Failing

Personally I'm not surprised; however, the politicians and and their advisors, plus a large number of Green organizations will continue to bang this failing drum, but at least they will get applauded for trying..... and failing?

As Howard Aitken stated:

"Don't worry about people Stealing your Ideas; if they are any good you will have to force them down peoples' throats"

The Mechanism for Reducing Environmental Impact is the Creation of a Parallel Industry that Removes Pollutants from the Environment and is Paid for by the Consumer of the Product that Causes the Pollution.

Think About It

Shale Gas, Frac on - The Economist, Nov 26-Dec 2 2011

"Energy firms often call (natural) gas a clean fuel: burning it releases roughly half as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as burning coal does. So, if gas fired power stations are built instead of coal fired ones, the cheap (shale) gas bonanza will help control global warming. Unfortunately though, they probably will not be. Few new coal fired power stations are planned in America or Europe anyway. And China, which also has lots of unexploited shale gas, has few scruples about burning cheap coal. Either way, gas fired power stations are more likely to substitute for solar panels, wind turbines and nuclear power stations.

The only way of ensuring that does not happen is to price fossil fuels to cover the environmental damage they do.

Power generated from coal would carry a high carbon price tag; power generated from gas a smaller one; power generated from renewables none at all."

This extract from the The Economist Leader entitled: Shale Gas Frac on, published in the November 26th - December 2nd 2011 issue is the first time I have seen a direct reference to the "real" cost of fossil fuels together with acknowledgement that the only way to start addressing the damage to the environment, is to factor in the cost of pollution.

Ideally, The Economist and everyone else should focus on this and build consensus, ultimately leading to the Environmentally Neutral approach I've been advocating on this Blog and on the Environmental Energy Facebook page.

Economist Debate on Carbon Capture & Storage, November 2011

In November 2011, The Economist held an online debate on the following:

"This house believes that climate-control policies cannot rely on carbon capture and storage"

http://www.economist.com/debate/days/view/781/showCommentModule:1

My contribution is included below...

Dear Sir,

We will be using fossil fuels for the foreseeable future and therefore continuing to pollute. CCS is not currently economically viable and unless it's commerciality improves, it won't happen.

The debate appears to be about the relative effectiveness of CCS in mitigating climate change.  This is largely irrelevant because if the process isn't economic, it won't happen.

So, how can CCS, or other pollutant reduction programmes be economic?

The extremely simple answer is by Governments legislating that, in 10 years time all products and processes must, by law, result in an environmentally neutral outcome.

How this would work...

Products and processes that pollute are allowed; however the cost of the product or process includes the cost of dealing with the resulting pollution. For example:

Cost to produce and market 1 litre of petrol: £0.65

Cost to remove pollution from usage of 1 litre of petrol: £15.00

REAL cost of 1 litre of petrol: £15.65

The £15 is used, by a new industry, to remove pollutants from the environment, thereby maintaining an environmentally neutral situation.

Rather than agonising over the potential effectiveness of CCS, Economists and true scientists should focus on the main issue which is that the REAL cost of fossil fuels (and other products that pollute, such as cement), is artificially low because the cost of dealing with the pollution has been ignored.

The sooner Economists wake up to the fact that their discipline is actually governed by the whole Planet's condition and factor in the full costs; Policymakers can be advised more effectively and the correct strategies adopted, sooner rather than later.

Sounds simple....

It is.

Can it be done?

Yes.

Will many learned people be nay-sayers?

Yes.

Politically it will be difficult even though technically & philosophically, it's straight-forward.

So let's promote the simple solution and build consensus around it, so as to make it easier for the Politicians to understand and then adopt the approach.

Lastly, how about a debate along these lines:

"If we are to avoid altering our environment as a result of pollution; simple economics indicates that products that cause pollution should include the cost of removing said pollution"

I'd be interested to hear people's valid arguments against this proposal.

I've been using the analogy of past human behaviour when, in Medieval times, people simply threw waste and excrement into the street.  This could be done because it was the easiest approach and more importantly, did not incur a cost.

Over time we learned that doing this in fact, did have a cost and we now pay for sewage disposal.

Adding pollutants to the environment is analogous to Medieval waste disposal. What we haven't grasped, particularly the Economists, is that by ignoring the cost of current pollution, is actually the issue that urgently needs to be addressed.

The missing element is the modern equivalent of the sewerage system, which is a new industry designed to remove pollutants from the environment.  Carbon Capture & Storage could be an element of this new industry; however it won't be unless the cost of pollution is borne by the consumer and then directed to the "pollution-control" industry.  All of which is basic economics, not rocket science!

Sadly Economists and many Scientists as well as Politicians do not understand this, or if they do, they're not articulating it.

Thoughts?

Berkeley Earth Project Report, October 2011

Well the Berkeley Earth Project's conclusion are that the Earth is experiencing a gradual warming phase along similar lines to the trends predicted by other workers.

This is fine and the debate on whether the trend is a direct function of human activity will continue to rage, even though it's unlikely to reach a consensus or satisfactory conclusion.

Until policy makers and politicians understand and then agree that all human activity needs to be implemented in terms of being environmentally neutral, we will continue to pollute and then pay for the damage later.

For example it has been estimated that the current widespread flooding in Thailand will cost the Thais USD 4 Billion. You could argue that this is a cost for not maintaining an environmentally neutral stance.

We will continue to use energy sources and materials that impact on the environment because they are currently cost effective, particularly when their impact on the environment has no direct cost to the consumer.

The political responses to the Japanese nuclear power plant disaster are quite interesting, in that nuclear energy has minimal impact on atmospheric pollution that is linked to global warming, but because of a somewhat unique disaster, certain countries have opted out of this completely. Yes, dealing with the nuclear waste is an issue, but this is achievable and is unlikely to cause climate change. The full cost of Nuclear power is known, whereas the full cost of fossil fuels isn't because the cost of polluting the atmosphere is ignored.

Factor in the cost of pollution and then selecting the most economic AND environmentally neutral sources of energy, is the way to (potentially) save the Earth from man made change.

If you factor in the cost of dealing with pollution, the cost of fossil fuels will increase, whereas other energy sources such as nuclear, solar, wind etc remain essentially the same. The non fossil fuels become the economic choice and the environment is not polluted to the same extent.

So policy makers and politicians just need to agree that the cost of all sources of energy must include the cost of removing pollutants from the environment, the rest should follow.

I'll continue to enjoy the debate and shenanigans about Anthropogenic Global Warming. This doesn't bother me, because we are clearly polluting the atmosphere, oceans and land; so it is quite likely that the Earth will be affected. This doesn't need proving, it's obvious.

It probably seems too simplistic and I'm certain many people will not accept my proposal; however, focusing on an environmentally neutral basis, with the full cost of pollution included, would allow all countries to move in the right direction.

Economist 29th January 2011 – The Coal Boom – Burning Ambitions Article

“Coal is the filthiest fossil fuel and is cheap only because its dirtiness isn’t included in the bill.”

Having written twice to The Economist in 2010 about the lack of recognition in their journal that the current cost of energy is artificially low because the cost of pollution is ignored; the writer of the article on the Coal Boom, in the 29^th January 2011 edition, hits the nail on the head, albeit in general language terms.

See the full article at:

http://econ.st/i0PayA

The Economist could be a useful  force for enlightening and disseminating the simple fact that, globally, current energy costs are not real, or full costs, unless the cost of removing pollution is included.  If you read The Economist regularly, their writers  fail to acknowledge this simple fact, with any consistency.

In fact it would be an interesting issue for The Economist to drive:

What are the full costs of the major sources of Energy, which include the cost of removing each form of energy’s pollution?

Too big an issue for The Economist to tackle?

Daily Telegraph / Shell Age of Energy Debates

Have a look at the material on the UK’s Daily Telegraph website on their Shell sponsored Age of Energy Debate series:

http://bit.ly/a1172l

and

http://t.co/vyvl3rk

I attended the debate held in September 2010 and can be spotted in the video proposing (albeit without the soundtrack) a model for solving climate change using an environmentally-neutral energy pricing basis.

At the September 2010 debate, it suggested to me that some of the scientific advice was being tailored to reflect what was considered to be politically achievable (probably within a single term of Parliament), not necessarily the actual core issue, which inevitably would take a longer to reach fruition.  If real, this is worrying.  It links to Sir Paul Nurse’s conclusions, in the January 24^th 2011 BBC Horizon programme, about the poor level of scientific communication and understanding.

One of my objectives is to highlight the need to build consensus that all energy policies should be environmentally neutral, which means the cost of pollution is calculated and added to the cost of the energy.

What arguments are there to counter this?

This approach is valid for all countries, consequently global alignment, in theory, should be achievable.

By calculating the full cost of each form of energy, it will be possible to identify the most cost-effective and therefore most efficient forms.

By including the cost of pollution into the product cost, the pollution cost element must be used to actually remove the pollution caused by using the energy, in order to maintain the environment in a stable condition. Dealing with pollution in this way is a new business model.

Pollution, through being ignored in economic terms has effectively been “free” up until now.

Economists should have been banging the drum about this big anomaly, because in reality, anthropogenic pollution has never been and never will be “free”.

It’s not unequivocal, but the probability is fairly high, that the world’s climate and oceans are starting to react to anthropogenic effects.

Personally I don’t need irrefutable, or even strong evidence that man is changing the climate, because it is blatantly visible what we are doing to the planet as a result of:

·        Not implementing environmentally neutral policies and

·        Failing to account for the real, full cost of pollution

I don’t see much benefit in science trying to prove anthropogenic climate change. This is more of a distraction from the relatively simple scientific and economics-based principles for actually dealing with human pollution.

This is where a national, followed by an international consensus is required. Subsequently, an internationally agreed programme to independently-derive full cost estimates for all major sources of energy, is required.

Step-1 is to get political alignment that we need an environmentally neutral energy basis both nationally and internationally.

Step-2 is to calculate the full costs of all major energy sources that include the cost of removing pollution.

Step-3 is to implement the environmentally neutral energy policy using the most economic and efficient energy sources.

Many will say this cannot be achieved. I disagree.

If you don’t think this is achievable, you’re welcome to say so, but you also need to provide a different basis and better solution.

Who can argue against the validity of an environmentally-neutral energy policy and therefore the need for costing the removal of pollutants, followed by actually removing them?

BBC Horizon: Science Under Attack – Sir Paul Nurse, 24th January 2011

Nobel Prize winner Sir Paul Nurse examines why science appears to be under attack, and why public trust in key scientific theories has been eroded.

In my view this was a worthy programme that diplomatically tried to illustrate the problems communicating scientific topics to others.  Nurse’s conclusion that the scientific community is not very good at communicating, is actually well known in the scientific community.

There’s little to be gained from blaming the media for this situation; they will always have some form of agenda as was beautifully illustrated by Nurse’s discussion with the Daily Telegraph’s James Delingpole.  I highly recommend you watch the programme to see this particular section.  Apparently Mr Delingpole felt “intellectually raped” by Nurse; see:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2011/jan/24/james-delingpole-tv-interview

And a certain viewer certainly didn’t end up with the same assessment of Nurse’s conclusions, that I did, see:

http://mikephilbin.blogspot.com/2011/01/bbc-horizon-science-under-attack.html

It’s great that we’re able to voice such opinions as included in the link immediately above.  The irony is that Nurses’ point is brilliantly illustrated by said opinion.

Aside from the science community’s poor communication with the outside world; this issue also has a serious impact on government policies.  It’s been commented on, by several other senior scientific people, at the low level of scientific experience in the UK’s Politicians and Civil Servants.

So, the probability is that the UK Government does not have sufficient independently-derived, accurate scientific knowledge, to be able to design policies that directly address the principal issues.  More often than not, the Government creates policies that address lower order issues, rather than the actual causation; perhaps because they don’t have the complete, un-biased, scientific foundation and therefore understanding?

I experienced a version of this at the Daily Telegraph / Shell Age of Energy Debate in September 2010. See my separate comment on this.

Interesting Debate in Economist (Jan11) - But Missing The Main Issue

At the end of January 2011 The Economist ran a debate on:

Will natural gas do more than renewables to limit the world's carbon emissions?

An interesting discussion, but one which misses the fundamental starting point for our current global situation.

The following was my contribution on the 27th January, 2011:

Dear Sir,

An interesting debate, but one that is missing the actual nub of the energy use & environmental impact issue.

It's a fact that natural gas is less polluting than oil or coal. Whether it's less polluting than renewable energy sources, is somewhat academic if you agree that it's not possible to compare these without factoring in the total cost of pollution generated by each source of energy.

Put simply, if we are to address the issue of energy usage and environmental impact, the sole mechanism is to agree that the cost of any energy source has to include the cost of dealing with pollution caused by using said energy.

So we need a consensus that the full costs of energy (including the cost of dealing with it's pollution) is essential in order to start dealing with the environmental impact.  Without this we won't come anywhere near addressing it.

Many people will say this cannot be achieved.

It can.

I challenge all scientists, economists or politicians to disagree with the statement:

"All energy usage should be environmentally neutral, so the costs of dealing with energy pollution are included in the cost of the energy itself"

This could be a more interesting debate than whether natural gas is better than renewables!

If we can agree that the world needs a consistent basis for costing energy sources and this basis includes the cost of dealing with pollution, then simple economics will demonstrate which types of energy have the lowest total costs.

Without knowing the full costs for each type of energy, it is not possible to construct an environmentally neutral energy policy.

The good news is that the science and economics are pretty much unequivocal, which should mean this is politically straight-forward. But, of course this isn't the case.

Just imagine politicians seeing and more importantly understanding the simplicity of this and instigating, perhaps via an international organization (for example the yet to be formed International Energy Commision), the full cost of all major energy sources, which would show the actual cost of using coal, oil, gas, nuclear, geothermal, hydro, wind, wave and solar, in an environmentally neutral mode.