You may well have seen the news that on May 9th 2013 the
daily reading of atmospheric CO2 at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii pasted
400 parts per million (ppm) for a 24 hour period. This is an important location
as it was here that we first started taking regular measures of atmospheric CO2
in the 1950's and it provides a clear record of what human activity is doing to
the atmosphere.
When the records started in 1958, atmospheric CO2 was 315
ppm. The first few years of measurement showed a slight up and down movement of
the readings, which was when scientists realised they were watching the planet
"breath". As the majority of the deciduous forests in the north of
the planet shed their leaves for winter, levels rose only to fall back again
when the new leaf growth appeared in the spring & summer. Over the next few
years, though, the trend fell into a stead up-ward trajectory with the first
decade of measure showing total concentrations rising by just under 1 part per
million per year. As the world's economies grew through the 1970s and 1980s,
the rate of increase went up steadily. By 1988, nine years after the US Academy
of Science had first warned of the dangers of climate change but before it had
become an international issue, the concentration level passed 350 ppm, a level
which is now believed to be limit for the relatively benign and safe climate
that humans have known throughout their history. To reach 400 ppm is also an
unfortunate milestone, not because 400ppm is radically more dangerous than 399
ppm but because for the past 20 years there has been concerted attempts by some
major countries to reduce their carbon emissions. The symbolism of the general
failure of these efforts to cancel growth in the "developing
countries" is hugely important.
Many non-scientists believe that human adaptability means
that we do not need to worry about where CO2 levels are as humans will simply
adapt to 'new normal'. Except that as CO2 levels rise, our new normal becomes
increasingly uncomfortable as weather patterns change and growing food becomes
ever more difficult. The UK suffered an appalling summer in 2012, which badly
hit many crops: the wheat harvest for example was the worst for 35 years. A
major bakery brand who had used the platform of only using 100% British wheat
had to abandon that position as shortage of supply forced it to import grain
from mainland Europe. While it was rain that spoiled the harvest in the UK,
searing droughts in the US, Canada and Australia combined to make world
supplies very tight indeed. Continued growth in the concentrations of CO2 will,
inevitably, lead to further disruptions in weather patterns and further
uncertainty over food supplies.
To secure our food supplies, we need to look at ways to
solve climate change. Limiting growth in CO2 levels is a good objective and
various concentration levels can carry symbolic meaning but there is nothing
more symbolic for modern humans than money. And how we use our money system
remains at the core of our problems.
When I consider buying something, the transaction is not
merely the exchange of money in return for a thing. It also reflects my
feelings about myself, how I got the money in the first place, the thing I am
buying, the location I have chosen to make the purchase, the people who work in
there, the people who transported the thing there, the people who made the thing
and the owners of the companies that did all these tasks. Money has facilitated
thousands of connections to bring myself and the thing together and my reaction
to the price being asked for it summarises my reaction to all those
connections. But what it does not reflect is the impact that making that thing
has had on the environment.
Price plays a critical role in markets, but the free
market is distorted by treating the Earth's primary resources and atmosphere as
the thing that is "free".
The basis of this thinking was the 18th-century
Enlightenment, when human population levels were much lower: the assumption we
could treat natural resources as being so abundant to be practicably infinite
were workable then. A world population of 500 million using a resource at a
rate that would appear to have it last 500 years could be forgiven for thinking
10 generations was sufficiently far away to be ignored. But that same quantity
of resource being used by a 7 billion population at the same rate would consume
it all in just over 35 years. The assumptions we base our economy on may have
been workable for pre 20th century population levels but they do not serve us
now.
In order to solve climate change we need to restructure
our economic activity so that the economy and environment have a symbiotic
relationship rather than a destructive one.
Impossible? I think not. Humans are capable of solving any
problem they want to focus on. And to solve the problem of climate change we
need to start by agreeing just one thing. The Earth is finite so our money
system must stop pretending otherwise.
Harold Forbes is Author of "How to be a Humankind
Superhero: a manifesto for individuals to reclaim a safe climate".
The book uses the myth of Hercules to provide individuals
with twelve impactful action areas to fight climate change. It has been
described by Jonathan Porritt, an eminent figure in the area of sustainable
development as "An enjoyable read that hits the elusive balance between
the analytic and the practical" while author Iain Banks called it a 'fine
and heartfelt piece of work'.
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