Our society runs on cheap and readily available energy just as our bodies require oxygen. And, just as any restriction in our supply of oxygen causes us immediate and serious harm, so will any crimp in the supply of energy rapidly drop our civilisation to its knees. That energy has allowed us to do fantastic things. In fact, we have been “high” on energy since the Industrial Revolution, but the party is winding down. We must change how we think about energy – now.

Substitute “energy” for “love” in the song by Sweet and you ruin the rhythm but get a fairly accurate idea of how important energy is:

Love is like oxygen
You get too much you get too high
Not enough and you’re gonna die
Love gets you high

Why is energy considered so critically important to our civilisation? Simply, there is no civilization-as-we-know-it without the energy we use in its current forms and proportions, mainly fossil fuels, nuclear, and hydroelectric. Any significant change in any of those energy sources and our civilisation would be severely shocked. We have built our society upon cheap and reliable energy.

Civilisation is built on a ready supply of energy; cut the supply and civilisation nosedives. Reduce the supply or increase the price, and civilisation takes a step back. Given that our current energy supplies are in jeopardy, we need to rethink – and rapidly redo – our energy security

Oil Substitutes or Get Off Oil?

To get an idea of our dependence upon oil and related products, consider this: Everything in the United States and Canada is transported by gas or diesel, excluding the occasional bike messenger. Our industrial farming system requires oil or natural gas-based fertilisers and pesticides. Our entire economy is based upon the ability to transport raw materials and finished products from one side of the world to the other cheaply – using oil-fueled transportation. We live in a global economy and think nothing of clothing from China and apples from New Zealand. Now imagine that oil was either no longer available or prohibitively expensive. In theory, we simply go back to manufacturing things and growing food closer to home. In practice, it’s not that easy.

Given our societies’ extreme dependence upon, and therefore vulnerability to the supply of, oil and natural gas, we should be moving rapidly to do one or both of:

• Develop and implement oil substitutes
• Reduce the amount of oil needed

Oil Substitutes

In reality, it is not so simple to swap out oil for something else. Technophiles suggest we will simply transition to different energy sources, from biofuels to electricity. However, consider this:

In 2002 a panel of top U.S. energy experts, writing in the journal  Science, noted that current global power use is 12 trillion watt-hours per year, with 85 percent of it coming from fossil fuels. The panel concluded that replacing those fossil fuels with biomass energy would require planting as much additional land as is already planted on the entire planet.

In other words, there is not enough land to grow all our fuel. Brazil is busy razing the rainforest to grow their fuel, which seems likely to lead to a very bad outcome for all of us, given that the tropical rainforests have been called the “lungs of the planet.” And the more land we plant to feed our cars instead of ourselves drives food prices up; the government of Haiti fell for this reason, there were riots in Mexico, and there was talk of food protectionism in various countries. This is all quite recent.

So, we convert to electric everything, right? And use solar, wind power, nuclear, and whatever else we can scrounge up to run it. Easy. Well, is it? How many electric transport trucks have you seen lately? And while electric trains are common in other countries, the U.S. and Canada have none, our rail systems are severely degraded, and most areas are now designed to be supplied by trucks on roads; there are no rails.

Don’t even think about electric cars for everyone; the energy required to replace the entire U.S. fleet would be staggering, and material for batteries would rapidly be in short supply.

In the potential conversion of the world’s road fleet from oil-based fuel to electric or PHEV type transport, it is not the amount of lithium in total that is likely to be the problem but the rate of recovery of it. To match the present 60 million number of new cars on the roads each year, this would need to be expanded by fifty-fold, a considerable undertaking in mining and production which is probably impossible. Electric cars are likely to become a rich-man’s luxury, while the level of transportation per se inevitably and vastly declines.
– World Lithium Supplies and Electric Vehicles

Keep in mind that I have only discussed the energy needs of transportation. How many homes are heated by oil or natural gas? All industrial farming is completely reliant upon oil and gas for everything from tractor fuel to pesticides and fertilizers, most of which are petroleum-based. And what about manufacturing?

The Waste-based Economy

We waste colossal amounts of energy. For example, 10 calories of energy are required to produce 1 calorie of food; imagine increasing the price of that energy – or shortages of it; no energy: no food. 95% of the energy used by a car is for moving the car; only 5% is to move the occupant. Our houses and buildings leak energy.

There is great room for improvement – we could reverse things and steadily become more efficient. Substituting oil comes with many complications and unexpected consequences – and costs. Reducing the amount of energy we use, on the contrary, saves energy, money, and resources. The United Kingdom and France have mandated net-zero houses by 2016 and 2020, respectively; these are houses that use no external energy over the course of a year. Reducing energy used by buildings is critical, because:

…there are hundreds of coal-fired power plants currently on the drawing boards in the US. Seventy-six percent (76%) of the energy produced by these plants will go to operate buildings.
– Architecture2030.org

Through simple changes to building codes, net energy use could be cut to zero for all new buildings.

Transportation is more difficult, because we’ve spent the last 50+ years building roads and organising our living arrangements around them. We have neglected or even deliberately destroyed rail, which is much more efficient than trucking or flying products and people around, in favour of roads. Rail can also be electrified, handy when oil prices increase. We should rebuild the railways and mandate that all intercity freight go by rail. That takes all the trucks off the highways – and we should stop subsidising the U.S. interstate freeways and Trans-Canada Highway. That puts people back on trains for short-to-medium distance passenger trips.

Food could certainly be grown more locally and organically. The best ways to accomplish this are to stop subsidising agriculture and to protect farmers with trade barriers. Yes, protectionism for food. Being dependent for one’s food supply on another nation, and on cheap energy to get it to you, is foolish anyway. Free trade should be for luxuries, not the necessities of life. The 3,000-mile Caesar salad would be no more, but it’s a goner anyway as oil prices rise.

Waste Not, Want Not

Transitioning to a green economy, in which there is no such thing as waste…eliminates waste, including wasted energy. For example, manufacturers in Germany must take back used appliances. The result is that they now design for this, so they can recover the materials and reuse them in new appliances.

There are many ways we can conserve, some easy and some not so, but all are worthwhile. However, there are still some difficulties to be overcome:

• Conservation is opposed by people who currently hold great power over our governments – the fossil fuel and auto lobbies
• We are behind the curve: Building windmills, hydrogen-powered tractors and so forth currently requires energy from coal, oil, and natural gas; we have not yet built solar-powered steel mills
• Canada could use its vast hydro and oil reserves to retool – if the US lets us. More likely the Americans will insist that “free” trade and other agreements entitle them to our oil (the ‘national interests’ of the US may be summed up as “Whatever we need, wherever it may be found, and however it can be taken with maximum profit”)

We could wait for the market to retool to a green economy, but there is no such thing as a free market. Powerful vested interests have been making sure of that for decades. The fast solution is for the government to mandate this retooling, but the market fundamentalists and vested interests will do their best to ensure this doesn’t happen until it is too late.

If we let that happen, energy prices will surely increase, oil and natural gas shortages are very likely, and the difficulty in sustaining civilisation will rise sharply.

Imagine yourself locked in an airtight box; the oxygen is running out and you are starting to gasp for breath. There is a window in the box and you can see an oxygen bottle outside, but to move there requires oxygen; without it your body will shut down and you will die. So do you gulp in as much air as you can, break out of the box, and go for the oxygen? Or do you stay where you are and hope for a miracle?

This latter describes our current energy policy. The energy is running dangerously low. We’re stuck in a box, with a fat-cat oil CEO blocking the only exit. Do you wait until you have even less energy before trying to break out of the box? Or do you remove him as an obstacle now? Your choice; your life and our civilisation depend upon making the right one.

Those solutions assume time to slowly decrease carbon output and honesty on the part of government and corporations. Time is too short and honesty virtually non-existent. They also leave out the other greenhouse gases, especially methane. We need to completely transform the economy starting immediately and achieve GHG neutrality within years, not decades. And why are we allowing people to pollute anyway?

People who think carbon taxes or cap-and-trade will work are assuming governments and corporations – these days there is little difference between the two – will do the right thing. Have they done so thus far?

The European Experience with Carbon Trading

Look at the European Union’s imposition of a carbon trading system; so far, carbon dioxide emissions by companies under the trading scheme continue to increase. Perhaps more slowly than they would have without the system, perhaps not; there is really no way to be sure. But we can say unequivocally that the E.U. carbon trading scheme has so far not done what it was intended to do, namely reduce emissions, while at the same time it has increased costs for consumers.

The theory of carbon trading is that companies have carbon credits (essentially a license to pollute) that they can sell if they don’t need them. Thus companies that dump less carbon sell their credits and companies that dump more have to buy credits. This is intended to provide motivation to emit less carbon. That’s the theory.

In the E.U., intense lobbying (formerly known as “corruption”) resulted in carbon credits being given to polluters for free, rather than sold, and so many of them were handed out that the carbon market all-but-collapsed. Accusations of undue corporate influence were and are denied by many of those responsible for handing out the credits. The value you should place on such denial is best illustrated by the case of the German economy minister of the time. He denies accusations of undue influence by industry –  and today sits on the board of RWE Power, Europe’s largest emitter of carbon.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
— Albert Einstein

If you expect a different result from a carbon trading system imposed in Canada or the United States, you’re crazy. Sorry, but you are. You’re expecting a different outcome from the same people and system who brought us the current mess. Do you really think the Canadian and American governments are less ‘influenced’ by big carbon emitters like Big Oil, King Coal, and the auto manufacturing industries than the E.U. governments were?

The sad fact is that large corporations will game the system in their favour, period.

What About Carbon Taxes?

At one time, I was in favour of carbon taxes. In theory, it’s the fastest way to send the correct signals to carbon emitters: Buy something made in a ‘dirty’ manner and you pay more. It’s also fair: the more you pollute, the more you pay. I even suggested that current sales taxes be replaced by a carbon tax.

Since then, however, I have become much more realistic. The same problem of corporate influence over government exists; corporations will finagle loopholes that defeat the purpose of the system. They did in Norway and they did in British Columbia, Canada, my home province. The result is that you and I pay carbon taxes, and big polluters get exemptions, tax breaks, subsidies, or some other special deal.

Theory versus Reality

In theory, cap-and-trade and carbon taxes will work. In the real world, they have not and will not. We must accept that our governments serve corporate interests first and foremost, and corporations do not want to pay taxes.

We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.
— Albert Einstein

The problem still remains, though. Greenhouses gases – not just carbon dioxide – continue to be dumped into the atmosphere. Pollution of many kinds, in fact, is still largely free. That is a big disadvantage to anyone trying to do the right thing; it is stalling the green economy.

How we will eliminate pollution in the face of corrupt governments and their corporate controllers is a mystery. I would say we will not, and it is dangerous, wishful thinking to pretend that we will.

In order to solve the climate crisis, we have to solve the democracy crisis.
– Al Gore

Yes, I just quoted Al Gore after two Einstein quotes. Gore is correct, but perhaps not in the way he thinks. We don’t have time to pass strict campaign finance and lobbying reform laws and then wait several terms for the turds to be flushed out of the system. It won’t happen anyway, because the majority of politicians in power and their corporate backers do not want it. At best, baby steps will be taken – and fought every step of the way – and we’ll never get there.

What Has Worked and What is Needed Now

When faced with a government corrupted by powerful interests, only two things have worked in history to fix that. One is violent revolution, and the other is mass, ongoing action. I prefer the latter; Martin Luther King Jr. and the U.S. civil rights movement showed how effective this can be. Candlelight vigils won’t do it. Economists and environmentalists need to accept that their theories are ignoring the reality on the ground. Incremental changes will be undermined by vested interests with more money and less morals than God.

The only way to clear the air of pollutants is to flat-out ban them. Give a phase-out period if need-be, but make it very short: 4 years at most. At the end of that time, any company still pumping out pollution has its corporate charter revoked. [Eliminating pollution does not mean wrecking the economy. That is propaganda put out by vested interests terrified their unsustainable business models will be challenged. I'll devote a future post to how we can - must - have a robust, clean-and-green economy with jobs for all. We retooled the economy in a few years to fight World War II; we can green it in four years.]

Sound extreme? Perhaps. The slogan for this site ain’t “The Voice of the Green Revolution” for nothing. But we cannot continue doing what we have been and expect different results. That is delusional. It is clearly not working. We are dealing with people who think they have a right to pollute and who will derail any action to stop that. I believe the evidence shows that they operate from a Predator Morality. They aren’t going to stop voluntarily, and our governments no longer have the power or any interest in doing so. It is up to us.

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Resources You May Find Useful

These books deal with green economy solutions. Natural Capitalism and The Climate Challenge are packed with working examples. Cradle to Cradle contains some interesting examples plus the background theory, and is printed on a special material that can be recycled into another book. The pages are washed and reprinted. Plan B 4.0 is by Lester Brown, one of the pre-eminent thinkers on solving the issues confronting us. It is also available as a free download (PDF).

We have many intelligent people in the highest positions of power. Some are less intelligent, but are quite cunning fellows. You cannot achieve the highest positions without a large dollop of one or both of these attributes. What is lacking almost entirely in the people at the top is wisdom. We need to fix that.

Wisdom is the ability to recognize and accept truth. Ignoring or denying reality, clearly, makes you unwise. Most of us have had the experience of being told by another: “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” And we did it anyway. And lived to regret it. Some people don’t have the chance to regret their mistake, because it turned out to be fatal; see: Darwin Awards.

Sometimes we repeat whatever it was that caused the warning and subsequent regret – and regretted it again. Some of us are slow learners. (I’ll admit to having been one at times, although I’m much quicker on the uptake now. After numerous repeated and very costly blunders, I finally “wised up” and made the decision to listen to wiser people and to make reality my touchstone, rather than wishful thinking.)

Unwise: Ignoring the Lessons of History

One of the values of history is that we can learn from the mistakes of others. Jared Diamond’s Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed is an examination of prior civilisations that collapsed, and why. That we are repeating many of the same mistakes is a sign of our lack of wisdom – and is rather alarming.

Diamond detected some common patterns that led to the the downfall of those who went before, despite building remarkably advanced societies in some cases. One common theme is detachment from reality, especially among those at the top. The Easter Islanders provide the clearest example, cutting down every tree on their island in order to roll those giant stone heads to their display location. The trees were also used to make canoes that permitted deep sea fishing, and were their only means of visiting other islands – or escape. Nobody had the wisdom or courage to ensure that no more trees were cut than regrew each year. Presumably the Easter Islanders put their ultimate faith in the god(s) represented by heads, rather than in their own effort.

Joseph Tainter, in his influential The Collapse of Complex Societies (New Studies in Archaeology) also found that prior civilisations never really considered sustainability – planting as many trees as were cut, maintaining a stable population, and so on – particularly important…and paid the ultimate price. Our current leaders are no different: Endless growth is the goal of every politician and CEO. [The Chinese leadership may be the only exception, at least with population if not with energy and other resource use, with their "one child" policy.]

This pattern is repeated over-and-over by different civilisations – and we are making the same mistakes. The previous cultures did not have the advantage of knowing what befell other civilisations; we do. This is unwise.

Wishful Thinking

In our case, we have chosen certain beliefs over reality, and any one of them could be our undoing:

• Belief: We cannot alter the planet such that it no longer supports us. Climate change, pollution, deforestation, desertification, over-fishing….
• Belief: Oil will never run out, or if it does, we will come up with substitutes in time to carry on the project of our civilisation.
• Belief: There is no such thing as overpopulation.

The first is rapidly being proven incorrect. We are altering the earth and we are starting to see the consequences now. Were we paying attention to history, the evidence is plain that some prior civilisations did themselves in through altering their local environment in such a way that it no longer supported them. Usually this is combined with populations expanding to the limits of the local environment. Disaster strikes when either that environment collapses, say through deforestation followed by soil washing down from now-denuded hills and burying fertile valley farmland, or when the climate changes. If population expands to the limits of what can be grown in a good year…and then there is a drought…some people are going to have to die.

This often results in a collapse of that civilisation. People generally don’t die quietly or watch their children starve to death. They lose faith in the leaders and systems that brought them to this point, and internal fighting breaks out.

Our civilisation is literally built on readily available energy in the form of oil. Reduce the supply of oil, or even simply increase its price significantly, and down we go. James Howard Kunstler has described this well in The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century. Yes, we can substitute other fuels, but that takes time – and we aren’t moving quickly at all in this area while demand continues to increase. It is not hard to imagine more oil wars coming. Gwynne Dyer interviewed Pentagon officials for his recent book Climate Wars: The Fight for Survival as the World Overheats, and the prognosis is not promising.

The Wisdom Deficit at the Top

We are an intelligent species, but we are not very wise. Worse, we don’t have the sense to at least choose the wisest among us as leaders. In many cases, we prefer people who tell us what we want to hear, true or not.

Climate deniers are a example: they are often very intelligent people – and also very unwise. They reject science in favour of what ‘feels right’ and what supports the status quo. Some deniers are paid by people with a vested interest in the status quo, but what kind of fool rejects science and reality in favour of lies and money? Deniers are like the Mayan priests who made sacrifices to the fertility god for a good harvest. The sacrifices did not prevent drought, and nor will all the money and press releases in the world prevent climate change.

If you have not lost faith in the leaders and systems that govern us, you should. They are paid to maintain the status quo, not to protect us.

Intelligence is no guarantee of wisdom. Neither is education, or even experience, if you don’t learn from your mistakes or those of others. And when the top dogs are not wise people, the whole society is in danger. We must replace these intelligent fools with people who value truth and who accept reality – no matter how inconvenient it may be. We still have some time to do this before a collapse, but time is running very short.

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Resources referenced in this post

Yes, and none of the above. I am a Realist. That means any economic system must:

• Work within the ecology, meaning be sustainable. Attempting to operate the economy as if it were not part of nature results in pollution, drawdown of natural capital like topsoil and oil, and ultimately, collapse. The economy is part of the ecology, not the other way around.
• Humans are part of the ecology. There is no point designing idealistic systems that do not respect human nature; people will find ways around such rules.

I don’t know what such an economy is called, because it has some capitalist and some socialist aspects; I call it a green economy.

The two major economic systems tried in recent eras have failed. The communist empires of the U.S.S.R. and China, same as the capitalist empires of Great Britain and the U.S.A, created vastly polluted and degraded areas. Neither ideology respects Nature’s rules, and a price was paid – and will be paid.

Both capitalism and communism also disrespect human nature. Communism expected endless self-sacrifice for the greater good – in reality for the enrichment of those at the top – while capitalism expects endless consumption for the greater good – again, in reality, for the enrichment of the CEOs at the head of the gravy train.

Both systems are run by greedy men who care only for themselves. Libertarianism is unregulated capitalism, and is a disaster because humans require some regulation to live in a society. Left unregulated, the predators will naturally rise to the top, as we have seen in the United States. The CEOs care only for the size of their paycheque, and actively lobby to enhance their pay and prestige at the expense of their country. The government becomes corrupted and serves the corporate leaders rather than the citizens.

Excessive government combined with secrecy is also an excellent route to the top for those of predatory morality, and thus the disaster of the Soviet Union, and its ultimate collapse.

The best economic solution appears to have the following features:

• No mega-corporations; companies will always seek to grow, thus eliminating competition and controlling the government. This must be prevented; break them up long before they get “too big to fail”. Only with many small businesses will there be a competitive market.
• No mega-rich people; they will seek to pervert government for their own benefit. Set maximum wealth taxes.
• Strict government regulation on pollution, worker safety, and so forth
• Cooperative unions or no unions
• Significant employee ownership of their company
• Cooperatives rather than corporations for many current businesses, such as wind farms
• Open government – nothing is hidden

Some governments are close to this, such as the Scandinavian countries, and their standard of living reflects it. Further evidence comes from the great leaps forward in the 1950s and 1960s in the United States; millions of people achieved a secure, middle class lifestyle as corporations were held in check by government and unions. Most of that has been piddled away now, thanks to the actions of those listed in the first two bullets above. But during that time, taxes on the rich were up to 90%, economic growth was tremendous, and everyone was getting into the middle class. We should be learning from prior times when things went well.

Capitalism and Communism have both failed. What’s next? It must be the green economy: work within the ecology, including human nature.

Capitalist theory clearly breaks down when it comes to the climate crisis – or many other forms of pollution.

Climate change is a result of the greatest market failure the world has seen. The evidence on the seriousness of the risks from inaction or delayed action is now overwhelming. We risk damages on a scale larger than the two world wars of the last century.

Sir Nicholas Stern (now Lord Stern)
Head of the Government Economic Service and Adviser to the Government on the economics of climate change and development

That’s some pretty serious market failure we’re talking about. So why on Earth didn’t capitalism recognize the danger – and the opportunity – and go green? Why, in fact, is capitalism doing the opposite, and doing its best to obstruct self-preservation?

The green economy could have been capitalist, in theory. Let’s take a simple example: a business selling heating oil to houses. The current business model is simple: Sell oil, make profit. The more oil sold the more profit made. Immediately we see the inherent problem; it is in the oil supplier’s best interest that the customer be as inefficient and wasteful as possible. It is also in the supplier’s best interest to keep customers from switching off oil to something else, so the business invests money in persuading customers and legislators to stick with oil.

In theory, the business owner would recognize the long-term threats to his business: the oil will run out, and it is causing global warming. In reality, business owners have proven very adept at ignoring problems, preferring to make as much money as possible now, and count on a bailout later if necessary. They know how to make money selling oil, and they plan to keep that racket going as long as possible.

A better business model would be to sell comfort rather than heating oil or electricity. In this case, the supplier agrees to maintain a comfortable temperature inside a building, and is paid for doing so. This works for existing and new construction as follows: the supplier offers to provide a comfortable interior environment for a given price, and this creates an incentive to insulate, upgrade windows, add passive solar, and so on. The supplier pays for the upgrades because each increase in efficiency means more profit. This is a perfectly viable business – and clearly more efficient than the current one; why hasn’t it evolved?

Honest capitalists might say it’s because other business models are subsidised, and so the new model can’t compete. And that would be entirely true. So, if we cut the subsidies to Big Oil and coal, and put a tax on carbon pollution, will these other businesses have a chance? We’ll never know if we don’t try is the Libertarian motto, but there is another notable problem.

When businesses get large enough, they exert considerable influence on all levels of government. When large corporations form an ‘industry association,’ they act as a monopoly, and their influence is enormous. One oil company would be difficult enough for any Member of Parliament to stand up to; the entire oil industry is overpowering.

Ah, the capitalists say, but if there were no government regulations, there would be no problem.

No government regulations are the most favourable ‘regulations’ possible! Corporations don’t behave well with less oversight and regulation; they’re much worse. Many of those sweatshops in Malaysia and the rest of the unregulated developing world are feeding giant corporations. The recent banking/economic crisis was the result of unregulated greed, as was the United States Savings and Loan crisis. Unions came about as a result of unregulated corporations abusing their employees. All the pollution in the world today is a direct result of us allowing it, meaning we could have but did not pass regulations against it.

According to capitalist theory, the cause of the global disaster of climate change…is us. Not businesses, but consumers purchasing items that are bad for the environment. The problem is not the suppliers; they are mere innocents doing the bidding of the market. If only their customers would demand it, lament the businessmen, then business would be happy to provide it.

However, this conveniently overlooks the millions of dollars spent in advertising and in campaign donations to ensure that consumers don’t know about options or are confused about them, that potential, up-and-coming competitors never have a chance, that subsidies flow to the fossil industries, and so forth. There are many ways to prevent competition and to protect the status quo.

The problem is not government; some will always be needed in civil society. The problem is that government has become corrupted: it is a source of power, and therefore will be appealing to the wrong types of people. Corporations are even worse because the accountability is lower. If politicians screw up badly enough, they’ll be tossed out. If a CEO screws up badly enough, the company he mucked up will get a bailout and he’ll get a hundred-million-dollar golden parachute.

Unless, of course, there are government regulations prohibiting such things. The market does not and will not, because the market credo is greed is good. CEOs will not self-regulate; you can hardly ask an addict to refrain from heroin – and then throw the stuff at him.

How to keep the government honest is another question for another day.

But – why didn’t the market move into greener fields? Why, in fact, did the market resist this move, and is still resisting it, despite considerable evidence that many people are willing to go greener – and we must green the economy or die?

Momentum in a certain direction is one factor; many businesses large and small are set up to operate a certain way. Take the example above; if a company is making money selling heating oil, that company will resist changing to a new business model of providing comfort, even if it is a better business opportunity than selling oil in the long run. The real reason is not that ‘the company’ is on the oil-selling track, but that that’s how management makes their money.

Very few executives are entrepreneurs; they instead manage a business that somebody else built. The executives may be creative in narrow ways – certainly they have demonstrated how creative they can be when it comes to their pay packages – but they are not innovators. The executives want to keep doing what makes them money right now, and they will fight any attempt at change. They are highly risk averse to any threat to their paycheques.

This is a significant flaw in capitalism; the creative accountants are the ones getting to the top, not the innovators. And these wonder-kids with their MBAs are far more interested in innovative financial instruments for their personal financial gain than in running a real company.

The important lesson we take from this is that the market cannot be trusted. Unregulated markets favour mergers and acquisitions until there are only one or a few corporations in each niche. At this point, competition is minimal, and there may be active collusion through ‘industry associations’ to operate in concert. Further, such large corporations are able to exert excess influence on government, ensuring laws and taxes in their favour, and less oversight.

Capitalism degrades to crony capitalism the way communism degrades to dictatorship. Both are a way for the power-hungry to consolidate power, wealth, and position. We should expect this; it happened in the 1800s, too, with the Robber Barons.

The inevitable result under capitalism is crony capitalism, where a well-positioned few run the show. Unfortunately, this means the market is not free and is not adapting to changing realities like climate change. The solution is not deregulation, because this simply allows the boys at the top freer rein. The solutions are to re-establish a competitive market by breaking up large corporations, and to eliminate corporate influence from government so that politicians serve their constituents, not corporations.

Until this is done, many large corporations will fight to preserve their current business model, not matter how outdated. From the RIAA suing their own customers to Big Oil funding climate change denial, we cannot expect corporations or their CEOs to behave rationally. They will fight to preserve their current business model because that’s what they know, and that’s where their power, profit, and prestige comes from.

Copenhagen has failed to produce a realistic plan to combat the climate crisis. Two degrees is too much; the current heating of 0.8C is already cooking the world, melting practically every glacier on the planet, causing deserts to spread and wildfires to be much more damaging, and ocean acidification is destroying the entire marine food web. Tens of millions will be driven from their land, their homes, and their livelihoods to become displaced climate refugees within the next forty years.

This is unacceptable. It is greed hiding behind diplomacy. It is mass murder.

If what is considered “politically feasible” is inadequate to meet the threat, then politics and politicians must change or be changed. The crooked and foolish lobbyists who sabotaged a realistic agreement must be held accountable: They must be tried for crimes against humanity immediately.

We are the Climate Justice League, and we are climate realists. We accept that we face a climate emergency and must respond appropriately. The agreement at Copenhagen leads us to climate disaster; billions will ultimately die. No more talk. The time has come to do what must be done, no matter the vested interests who will make a few millions less. We must go green or die.

The Climate Justice League Go Green or Die Manifesto

1. The economy is a part of the ecology, not separate, not the other way around. As we destroy the current ecology, we destroy civilisation and the economy. The converse is not true.
2. We must cut all greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions immediately. We cannot emit any more carbon, methane, or any other greenhouse gases; every molecule emitted reduces our chances for survival.
3. Climate change is deadly: Those who concealed the truth or obstructed action must be tried for crimes against humanity and given the maximum sentence. They are dangerous sociopaths and we cannot allow them to bring us all down. This includes almost all oil and coal company Chief Executive Officers and the shills they paid to deny and obstruct.
4. Emission reductions must not be delayed by economic interests. Greedy and foolish people have put us in a life-or-death situation, and continuing to follow their lead is folly. Business people and their shills who attempt to delay are betraying all of us. They had their chance to lead, and they will not follow. They must now get out of the way; they must be jailed.
   1. We must mobilise as we did for World War II: industry must be converted overnight to be sustainable.
   2. All subsidies for greenhouse gas-emitting industries must be ended immediately, including tar mining and farming.
   3. All resource extraction industries, including farming, must immediately convert to be sustainable. Sustainable simply means that something can be done indefinitely without harm to people, planet, or prosperity.

The Key Contributors to Climate Change

Deforestation must be reversed. Illegal logging operations should be bombed from the air. Reforestation will remove carbon from the atmosphere.

High-speed electric trains must replace domestic and intra-continental air travel. Electric streetcars must replace buses and private cars wherever possible. Where private vehicles are necessary, as in rural areas, they must be powered by GHG-neutral fuels such as electricity, hydrogen, or biofuels.

Farming operations must return to sequestering carbon. Permaculture and other farming methods exist that will rebuild topsoil, making crops more resilient to drought, downpours, heat, and pests, all more common due to climate change. Monoculture must be replaced by diversity for resilience and food security. Sustainable farming removes carbon from the atmosphere.

All subsidies to greenhouse gas-releasing industries must be stopped immediately, including farming and tar mining.

Developing countries must stabilise population as quickly as humanely possible. Developed countries must stabilise population immediately by reducing immigration to zero-growth levels. Immigration to developed countries must be for refugees and family reunification only – no more economic immigrants – and only to the level at which population is maintained.

All new construction must be GHG-neutral. There are many alternatives. It is insane that our current houses last less than 100 years; the Romans had hammers and chisels and their buildings were far sturdier.

Any nation not taking every action to cut its greenhouse gas emissions to less-than-zero must become a pariah: no trade, no immigration, no aid. The rest of us must make up for any country that does not do its part.

Individual Actions

We must all do what we can, given the society we live in:

• 12 (Mostly) Legal Things Individuals Can Do Right Now to Combat Climate Change
• If legal means fail, the responsible and patriotic thing to do is civil disobedience
• If legal means and civil disobedience fail, desperate individuals will become dangerous

If you want to help save the planet, join us.

Bill McKibben, famed environmentalist and founder of 350.org, is shocked that Copenhagen was a sham in which the developed countries never intended to even attempt the carbon cuts we realistically need. The leaders of these countries are willing to commit us to 3C+, which means the end of us; once 2C is exceeded, irreversible and uncontrollable feedbacks will kick in and global temperatures will shoot up by 6C or more. Agriculture is impossible at those temperatures, meaning civilisation and most of humanity are finished.

Bill McKibben is a dedicated soul, and has done more about the climate crisis than most people – but did he really think candlelight vigils were going to persuade people who have been disseminating lies about global warming for years? These people are neither wise nor good. They care only about themselves and their cronies, and seem wilfully blind to anything that impedes the flow of lucre.

The title of this article, by-the-way, is a quote from Al Gore, and he is right. Again. The reason Copenhagen failed is simple: vested interests who care more for money than anything else, certainly more than the truth, influenced governments to sabotage the cuts we need. My country, Canada, is one of the worst offenders, and the U.S. is hardly better.

Governments used to protect the people; now they protect whatever vested interests buy them off. The United States Congress is surely the most corrupt democratically elected body on the planet; Canadian politicians are no better.

We will not get action on climate until we demand it – with pitchforks if necessary. Our ‘leaders’ have realised they can safely ignore rallies, vigils (even those with candles), demonstrations, and individual acts of disobedience. We either reclaim our power or those wielding it will drive us to oblivion.

That is why a group of us formed ggod. No more talk, no more rallies. Save the candles for when the lights fail. We need action – and we must start holding deniers accountable. If we charge Rex Tillerson and the others who have been funding climate denial with crimes against humanity, we cut off the funds and we set an example to the greediest people in the land: The free ride is over.

The failure at Copenhagen has made some things abundantly clear. First, the developed countries are too corrupt to lead wisely. Our governments are beholden to vested interests too blinded by love of money to see that their actions are suicidal. Second, we are the ones we’ve been waiting for. If we perish now, we cannot blame our ‘leaders,’ for they have been revealed to be emperors with no clothes, much less courage or wisdom. It is now clearly up to us.

I urge everyone to sign the petition urging the Maldives and other sinking countries to charge Rex Tillerson with crimes against humanity. Beyond that, we must do whatever it takes to rescue ourselves and our planet. Climate change is life or death; are you going to go quietly? Or are you going to fight?

I hyperbolate only slightly. If climate change will devastate these countries – if some of them will be completely obliterated by the results of our actions – is this not equal to war? Who can blame them for walking out of the Copenhagen talks?

If this seems extreme, consider this example: If a river flows through two countries and the upstream country decides to take all the water, there will certainly be war. The downstream country will have no choice. The same parallel applies with climate change: the developed nations have caused most of the global warming thus far, and, much worse, have denied and obstructed action to reduce the impacts.

There is plenty of information about the devastation climate change will wreak first and worst on the developing countries:

• Rising seas will drown some countries completely (Maldives, Tuvalu, etc) and force the evacuation of hundreds of millions (India, Bangladesh, China, Vietnam, etc)
• Spreading deserts have already driven many from their homes in the Sudan, and resulted in the slaughter of hundreds of thousands
• Malaria and other plagues are spreading
• Growing season changes will result in crop failures, food shortfalls, and starvation
• Water resources are already stressed; climate change will eliminate the Himalayan glaciers that provide water to 3 billion people, some with nukes

The sinking countries are not going quietly, and nor should they. We in the West have been corrupted by false conservatives who conserve nothing and consume all. They have attempted to make greed virtuous, but this cannot be done. Our ‘leaders’ will protect their cronies until the end – unless we stand up to them, and the developing countries need to prod us into action.

Dear G77: We’re going to try to talk you into more talks. If you don’t insist upon immediate action to prove sincerity, then you will be destroyed. Here are five things the G77 should do right now; some to wake the rest of us up and some to demonstrate a commitment to justice and fairness. Here they are:

1. Charge Rex Tillerson with crimes against humanity. He is the CEO of ExxonMobil, which has funded climate denial public relations groups for many years. Make Tillerson an example; it is time paid deniers are held responsible for their actions.
2. Start planning to switch to OpenOffice and Ubuntu. It’s a small warning shot, but imagine if India, China, and every other developing country switched from Microsoft products to open source software; Microsoft would lose the entire developing world market and those countries would save a fortune in licensing fees to the West.
3. Formally request that all developed nations give up a portion of their land to displaced people. For example, The United States could give up Kauai to give the people of the Maldives a new home.
4. Formally request that Canada and the other developed countries accept climate refugees. For example, Bangladesh may see upwards of 17M people driven from their land by rising seas in the next 40 years; Canada should agree to accept those refugees.*
5. Limit corporate powers and size drastically and switch to cooperatives. This will stick a knife in the heart of American capitalist ideology, which has produced mega-corporations with far too much influence over governments.

To a Canadian or American, these actions sound extreme, ridiculous, even insane. To someone who is going to lose his home, his livelihood, and his land to become a climate refugee, they sound more than fair.

If you want to see some action from Canada, do these things. If you want the U.S. to get serious about climate change, do these things. Until then, we’re just going to keep talking. Do not back off; follow through. Serious action is needed to demonstrate sincerity.

*********************************************

UPDATE Dec. 18, 2009

* It has been brought to my attention that I appear to be advocating for Canada to accept 17M Bangladeshis, for the United States to give over Kauai, and so on. I am not. I make three points here: First, The sinking countries should be requesting this as a way to wake us up. Second, I am trying to wake Canadians and Americans up to the enormity of what they are doing to others. And third, I want us to consider what is right. Call me an old-fashioned conservative, but I believe that you try to do no harm in your life. When you do a wrong, and we all do, you try to right it as best you can. In our case, Canada is obstructing a climate deal for the benefit of the tar sands, aka money. We are doing things that are harming others. You don’t do that, if you have a conscience. And if we keep doing it, do we not have a moral obligation to try to make things right?

In a previous post, I listed mostly illegal things that individuals are likely to do unless serious action is taken on climate change – very soon. The actions listed here are things we all need to be doing to prevent getting to the stage where people are desperate or angry enough to become destructive or dangerous.

Here are useful, worthwhile things you can do right now to be the difference we need.

1. Set an example

Gandhi said, “You must be the change you wish to see in the world,” and “My life is my message.” Both are still true, and this is the most important thing you can do. We are social animals, and your example will push us toward a social tipping point.

Before the tipping point, there is much resistance and it seems change is impossible, or at best far away. Afterward, when everyone is doing it and a new social norm has been set, it seems impossible we would ever go back to the old way. Think recycling: Now it is shameful not to recycle in Canada and some parts of the United States. Or single-payer health care: there is enormous and well-funded resistance to it in the United States, yet nobody in their right mind in Canada or Europe would consider moving to a U.S.-style private-only system.

When it comes to setting an example, go as far as you can within your circumstances – then push a bit further.  Use some of the ideas below to expand yourself and be a better example.

2.  Get to know climate change and Peak Everything

Many people simply are not aware of how dangerous – and real – climate change and other threats are. Once you know, anyone with a grain of a conscience (this excludes those with the predator morality) will feel compelled to take action.

I have listed some sources to educate yourself on these issues under Resources, which describes the stages I went through and the books, movies, websites, and people who helped me. Most newspapers, television, and radio are not trustworthy. There is some reliable information there, but there is also disinformation. The Guardian has an excellent Environment section, and the BBC is also decent.

3. Go meatless on Mondays

It doesn’t have to be Mondays, but one of the best things you can do for the planet right now is eat less meat. The meat industry generates anywhere from 18% (more than the entire transportation sector) to 51% of greenhouse gases. Excess consumption of animal products is also blamed for most heart disease, so do yourself and the planet a favour and learn a few good vegetarian dishes. I recommend How It All Vegan!: Irresistible Recipes for an Animal-Free Diet and The Vegetarian Kitchen.

Note: If your meat is venison or free-range, hormone and antibiotic-free, and local, then it may actually be greenhouse gas-neutral. Unfortunately, very little meat meets these criteria.

4. Take an Earth Institute course

The Canadian Earth Institute and the Northwest Earth Institute (U.S.) offer several excellent and simple courses, including: Choices for Sustainable Living, Voluntary Simplicity, Discovering a Sense of Place, Exploring Deep Ecology, Globalization and its Critics, Healthy Children, Healthy Planet and Global Warming: Changing CO2urse. If you’re not sure about global warming, take the last course.

All courses are done in small groups and self-paced. There are no tests, and the only cost is for the workbook. It’s the best way to gain knowledge.

5. Organize an Earth Institute course

Host a course in your house with family or friends. Talk to your minister/preacher/rabbi/religious leader about the church/temple/whatever hosting the courses. Religious leaders are like you: they want to do something constructive but are often not sure what. The Earth Institute courses are a great idea, simple to do, and religious leaders generally love ‘em. You could also start a meetup to get people together for a course. Run a singles course.

6. Host a documentary

Organize a showing of An Inconvenient Truth, Who Killed the Electric Car?, or one of the other great documentaries related to our current crises. Many are available from local libraries.

7. Arrange a live presentation of An Inconvenient Truth

These presentations are free, and most presenters have updated the original Gore slideshow to include the latest science, local impacts of climate change, and more solutions. The presenters are ordinary people doing an extraordinary thing. Canada, U.S., Australia, India, Spain, or the U.K. All presenters are volunteers, including me. I also have a presentation entitled The Way Home, not free, which describes how to get back to living sanely.

8. Arrange a speaker

There are many other speakers/presenters who are well worth bringing to your town if you have the wherewithal to organize it. Beware, though; the deniers also go around speaking. Some speakers I recommend (the books noted are also well worth reading):

• James Howard Kunstler (author of The Long Emergency
  The Geography of Nowhere, and more) on Peak Oil
• Ray Anderson (CEO of Interface Carpets and author of Confessions of a Radical Industrialist: Profits, People, Purpose–Doing Business by Respecting the Earth) and speaker on Sustainable Development
• Paul Hawken (author of The Ecology of Commerce, Natural Capitalism and, Blessed Unrest) on ecology/economy
• David Korten (author of The Great Turning, When Corporations Rule the World, and more) on the end of empire

9. Get active

If any of the speakers listed above comes anywhere near you, go see them! If a local group is bringing a speaker to town or organizing a showing of a documentary, GO! I saw David Korten thanks to a local business group, and the premiere of The Age of Stupid thanks to a local eco-group.

Note: I have not recommended joining eco-groups like The Sierra Club, World Wildlife Fund, or Greenpeace.  Although some of these groups do great things, right now they are all working in silos. There is no synergy among them; they all have their own agendas, and often egos keep them isolated. United we stand, divided we fall is as true as it ever was, and I cannot recommend joining these groups until they start acting in concert on climate change. In addition, many people join a group, send off a cheque, and think they’ve done enough. Anyone can do more and better.

10. Go to local vegetarian potlucks

Most cities have a vegetarian group, and most of those groups have monthly or even weekly potlucks. It is worth going at least once or twice; most are populated by very nice people and you’ll get to try some great food. They are generally very gentle with newbies, so you can take a salad to the first one to see what it’s all about. Raw food groups and potlucks are booming, and are often organized by the veggie group.

11. Listen to real scientists

There are a lot of disreputable people claiming to be climate experts. Tim Ball, for example, is often welcomed as a speaker at Chambers of Commerce because he tells the local business people there is nothing to worry about, the world is actually cooling, and business-as-usual can continue. None of these are true, but all are very tempting to believe.

Scientists are speaking out more frequently now as the urgency of the danger becomes more obvious. Go listen to your local university scientists if you can. Many people wake up when they hear from a real person with real experience.

12. Support the sinking countries

The Maldives, Tuvalu, and other Pacific nations will cease to exist due to rising seas and stronger storms, probably this century. China, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Vietnam and many other countries will have to relocate millions of their citizens inland for the same reasons. The least you can do is sign the petition saying you support strong action on climate change, including charging Rex Tillerson, CEO of ExxonMobil and long-time funder of climate denial PR groups, with crimes against humanity. That will get his attention.

If you want to participate in rallies, candlelight vigils, and so forth, go ahead. People like Rex Tillerson and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper are not paying attention to them, but if it makes you feel good…just make sure you are doing something constructive, too, like the other actions listed here.

I am also not recommending civil disobedience unless it is en masse. Divided we fall, so individuals or small groups make easy targets – and are easily discredited. If there is a march of millions – legal or illegal – get in there. If there is a national strike – strike.  But small actions allow you to be picked off by the authorities and discredited on the news as a lone nut.

13. Sharpen the saw

This expression comes from Stephen Covey, famous for his excellent books and courses entitled The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.  It means that once you have a new and better  habit, keep it sharp by exercising it constantly. Get in the habit of raising your awareness on climate change. Find reliable sources of information.

14. Torch a Hummer

I’m kidding. One of the reasons for this list of useful things to do is to prevent things like Hummers being torched. If climate change is not addressed – soon – then desperate and angry people are going to do desperate and angry things. Fat-cats and their Hummers will become targets unless we take other actions, soon.

Disclaimer: If you purchase a book or video by clicking one of the links above, Amazon pays me a small commission. I do not make any money from the speakers, courses, or other resources listed.

And one more thing…

And, of course, you can donate to support what I do.

UPDATE – I am pleased to report that this post will be featured in the All Things Eco Blog Carnival.

To some, this seems ridiculous. To others, however, it is eminently reasonable. Let me explain why the charges are justified, and why Rex Tillerson.

The Case for Prosecution

In a post on Celsias.com, I laid out the case:

If climate change can reasonably be expected to cause severe consequences, including large-scale loss of material goods, wealth, land, livelihood, and life; and

Given that there is considerable evidence in favour of climate change occurring, that it is dangerous and will only get more so, that Exxon has given substantial contributions to organizations and individuals whose job it is to obscure the truth about climate change, and that Rex Tillerson has been the responsible person at Exxon during the time of the contributions, I believe there is sufficient evidence to charge Rex Tillerson with crimes against humanity.

The prosecution could call virtually any climate scientist working in the field today.

Mr. Tillerson’s richly compensated defence team could only counter with paid shills possessing highly dubious credentials. Some previously worked with the tobacco companies to conceal the truth about the danger of cigarette smoking. Many still do.

Why Rex Tillerson

As cited above, Tillerson was and is the man in charge at ExxonMobil, the responsible party. Tillerson has also made no secret of his opposition to doing anything about global warming.

Still, why him in particular? Why not go after Steve McIntyre or Fred Singer, who are do the actual denying?

The reason is simple: to kill the beast you must cut off its head. The individual deniers have the power they do only because they have been backed by large corporations like ExxonMobil. Cut the funding and the beast will wither. Cut down a denier and another will sprout in his place.

While other corporations have funded denial – see the excellent Climate Cover-Up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming by Jim Hoggan for a more complete accounting – many stopped their funding a few years ago. ExxonMobil continues to fund denial, and continues to lie about doing so.

To set an example, you don’t go after the small fry, you fry the big fish. Then all the other big and little fish are warned. Tillerson is the biggest fish in the denial cesspool. Putting him on trial would likely dry up almost all funding and support for deniers; a conviction surely would.

Who Should Bring the Charges Against Tillerson

In an honest world, the American government would have done so a long time ago. In reality, the U.S. government is heavily influenced, one might say “bought,” by monied interests, with Big Oil among the most monied and influential.

The other developed nations could do so, but I think everyone is afraid of going after the CEOs. They are too influential in the media, campaign donations, country clubs, and so forth. Many Western politicians expect to walk out of politics and into a plum corporate gig someday, so are unlikely to bite the hand that feeds them.

That leaves the poor countries. I suggested Maldives, which certainly has reason to do so – Maldives will cease to exist thanks to rising seas – but any developing nation could do so. Better, the G77 group of developing nations should do so, whether the United Nations agrees or not. If the United States can invade Iraq without UN approval  to secure its oil supply, then surely Bangladesh, Maldives, or the whole G77 can charge Rex Tillerson with crimes against humanity for sinking them.

* I realise that the charge of crimes against humanity applies only to “a government or a de facto authority,” but this is the other end of the stick that corporate leaders picked up when they decided to make it their business to “influence” governments. Corporate CEOs become the “de facto authority.” Welcome to being responsible for your actions.