Home while we still have one

arming is such a gentle word. It suggests comfort, reassurance, nothing threatening. Yet 'global warming' is the phrase we have been given (by whom one has to ask) to describe an increasingly manmade phenomenon which is killing people today and threatening the earth tomorrow.

Climate Change is another calm phrase suggesting a natural alteration at a stately pace. If my nose is broken I don't experience 'nose change'. My nose is broken, damaged, wrecked or permanantly injured. Yet 'climate change' is the phrase we have been given (by whom one has to ask - I suspect the same asshole who gave us 'regime change' - I'd say from the U.S. President's script writers team) to describe the effects of global warming on the earth's climate. In about 25 years these effects will begin to feed on themselves - permafrost will be melted by the rising temperatures, it will release more of the CO₂ it contains which will increase global warming and melt more permafrost and so on, is one horribly clear example.

My renewed passion for informing myself and then others about this heating of the globe and its dangerous alteration of our climate was prompted by reading, and re-reading, George Monbiot’s recent book '‘Heat'’. Read this book; it will change the way you look at the world. (A brief summary is on the ‘20 years to save our world’ page.)

It will change the way you hear current reporting on ‘emission targets’, ‘green’ initiatives, biodiesel as the ‘solution’ to global warming, and other brave, but completely unrealistic, promises of progress and hope.

The message is not hopeless though. In each energy gobbling area of a current western life (except air travel which simply has to stop) George Monbiot does offer a realistic and achievable solution. Many will require big changes in the way we live our lives.

I have done this work before. Run passionate, often angry, campaigns on protecting our environment, especially around transport. Do you have to hate cars to love the bicycle? Still not certain, but still hate them.

I heard Shumacher speak in 1974. Heard Fraser Darling’s Reith lecture on the radio in 1969. Was moved by both, but it seemed easier to make changes in less worldwide fields. Then, as many other people experience, alternative issues appeared closer and energies went into different projects.

There seems a happily revolutionary aspect to the changes we need to make. Socialism will arrive, doubtless called something else, forced upon the unwilling by the equality of their ration with every other person on earth. Anyone who truly feels that they are more important or valuable than the rest of the people on earth and can produce more than their fair share of CO₂is either too addicted to withdraw or too selfish to care.

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Recent Additions and Responses

Lightbulb Joke

Q.: How many Canadian Jobs are created by the sale of 120 million compact fluorescent lightbulbs? A.: None

Western capitalist democracies seldom ban anything. The 'free' market must prevail. Some items may be licensed - firearms, driving - or restricted by age - alcohol, tobacco - but this is not the same as a ban.

The announcement that incandescent lightbulbs will be banned in Canada by 2012 suggests that at least 120 million compact fluorescent bulbs will be bought between now and then. (Assuming that each person will buy just four of the new bulbs.)

The estimates suggest that 400,000 metric tonnes of emissions will be saved by this change. This is a good thing.

But they are all made in China. I have been unable to find a Canadian made compact fluorescent.

So while the direct savings through replacing the bulbs is positive we are not 'buying local'. We are transporting the bulbs half way round the world with all the energy that takes (a typical freighter emits the same CO₂ as 2000 diesel trucks/ lorries) and the factories in China making the bulbs are likely to be using power produced by coal burning power stations. Some of the coal burnt in these ghastly emitters is imported from Canada.

So it seems a nonsense not to pull everything together and set up a Canadian production line, or even five or ten factories across the country. Have them placed to take advantage of hydroelectric power.

Then we would also be ready to produce our own light emitting diode bulbs. LEDs are still being researched to make them more appropriate for everyday use. Every expert in the field is convinced they will be the replacement for compact fluorescents within 20 years.

There must be a Canadian company ready to take this moral and economic stand. It'll certainly make money as well as sustainable sense.

Update - a North American manufacturer of CFLs

From the answer to a Yahoo question I found there is a North American maker of CFLs.

Traditional recipes are responses to the indigenous fuel.

We are what we heat..... (sorry)

Every culture's diet and style of cooking is influenced by its access to fuel.

Most will have two styles for everyday cooking - slow at a low temperature and fast at a high one.

The Chinese stir fry is not an accidental development, but a way of using very limited fuel to prepare a meal. Cut all ingredients of size so they will all cook to 'doneness' at once. The classic Irish stew is a consequence of a country which uses peat as its main fuel source for cooking; peat produces low but sustained heat. Precook a couple of ingredients, then put everything in a closed dish and simmer gently for as long as it takes.

Most cultures will also have a different, profligate cooking style for celebrations and special events. Think of the feasts of whole roast lambs, goats and pigs created in cultures all around the world. It is when this style of food preparation, using lots of whatever the local fuel may be, is used everyday that it becomes a major, inappropriate, user of energy.

Over the last 150 years or so the typical western way of cooking has largely forgotten this simple distinction.

The meat and two vegetables, the meat, in a large piece, roasted at a high temperature for a long time with boiled vegetables in two separate pans, is extremely wasteful.

So if you want to cook appropriately, firstly use top quality cookware. This will ensure that the heat, produced by whatever fuel, is directed at the target - the food or water or oil.

Then either cook the meal at high heat for a short while, sizing the ingredients to suit, or cook slow and low. The slow and low style will sometimes require you add ingredients at different stages of the cooking. (Carrots added with 20 minutes to go until the food is served for example.)

Cultural Effects of Global Warming and changes to immigration

In terms of CO₂ emissions Vancouver can't be sustainable with the current level and style of immigration.

Before any hackles rise, I'm an immigrant myself. I have been 'home' and then come 'home'. I understand this dilemma and have experienced the lack of expectations of what are now being called 'newcomers'.

I have not been able to find statistics on the percentage of air travel to and from Vancouver which is due to Vancouver resident immigrants making the journey to and from their original country. Any time spent at the airport, or time overhearing conversations, will tell you that many immigrants make very regular trips 'home'.

George Monbiot in 'Heat' talks about 'Love Miles' when he addresses the damage that air travel is having and how being separated from the ones we love (or at least are related to...) puts us in a moral quandary; we know we shouldn't fly but we also have a moral obligation to visit relatives.

This is not an attack on immigration itself. Though there are excellent debates which need to be had about the right of wealthy western countries to bribe or otherwise lure people trained by their relatively poor home countries. (Would it not be more moral to work at helping these countries retain their resources?)

What has to change is the commitment that immigrants make. The deal, the new sustainable deal, will mean that regular flights to and from the country of origin will not be possible.

So from now on in, if you want to emigrate to Canada then it's pretty much a last flight. (Or more to be more fully sustainable, a last coach or train or freighter trip or combination of these.)

In Vancouver this change in the level of commitment to place will require a large change. Some current immigrants may not wish to face the new reality, and will make a last trip 'home'.

For others this change will mean that they will wish to bring other members of their family to be with them here.

This will require more flexibility in the immigration rules around bringing extended family to Canada.

I have no way of calculating how many immigrants would decide to go 'home' rather than give up trips to their homeland, and how many would stay but want to bring in their relatives.

So whether this change to our relationship to air travel will lead to a net increase or decrease in immigration we won't know for a while.

We can expect that this higher degree of commitment, what's to be given up and what new neighbourhoods will need to be engaged with, will change the attitude to being an immigrant.

Stephen Hill, currently in Vancouver, BC, Canada, can be reached at: info (at) mobilizingmouse.com