The Angry Generation

Climate change is a hot topic … literally. It’s fashionable to be sustainable, yet it’s never sustainable to be fashionable. Business schools and consultants are in love with MBAs and ESGs, but do they even know their ABCs about SDGs and GHGs. Climate change is arguably the one topic I’m at least slightly qualified to talk about. For everything else, I’m pretty much just an opinionated fuck. It’s also the one I am most scared to talk about. Not only is Dunning-Kruger coming into full effect, I believe that climate change is such a threat that I don’t want to mess this up.

Climate change is somehow political. In reality, there’s no somehow about it. The political nature of climate change was a successfully coordinated attempt by the fossil fuel industry to obfuscate and confuse in order to maximise profits. Do you know just how much oil companies fucked us over? In the 1980s, scientists at both Exxon and Shell made predictions about how the increased use of fossil fuels was leading to, and would continue to lead to, higher levels of CO2 in the atmosphere which would cause global temperatures to rise in the 21^st century, i.e global warming [1]. They also predicted the devasting consequences that these temperatures would have on the planet. Their predictions have proven to be very accurate. They fucking knew. Not only did they know and not inform us, they actively spread fear and misinformation whilst designing their infrastructure to be resistant to the rising seas and higher temperatures that they predicted would be experienced in the 21^st century. They fucking knew and did worse than nothing. They pumped oil money into advertising campaigns, lobbyists, and corruptible “scientists” to portray global warming as an unproven and debatable topic. They muddied the water (and I’m not taking cheap shots at oil spills here) by focusing on the potential lack of accuracy in global warming predictions. They instilled fear in the public by making them think that acting against global warming would interfere with economic growth and prosperity. They even changed the name of the issue itself. Global warming, deemed too frightening, became climate change. The weather changes every day, so why be scared of a changing climate. And now climate change is viewed by some as a belief, akin to religion or Santa Claus. It has become a belief that corresponds to certain political ideologies. To this day, certain Democrats, and let’s be real, all Republicans in the USA are being fed an IV drip mixture of dollars and dinosaur to block meaningful changes that could tackle the issue. The public were hoodwinked, the oil barons profited, and the planet became, arguably, irreparably damaged. They knew what they were doing, they should pay for their crimes. We have a right to be angry, they will be long dead whilst we deal with the consequences.

Pause. Rewind. What is climate change? What are its causes? Anthropogenic, i.e related to humans, climate change is the rise in global temperatures caused by the increase in the levels of greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere. The increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is a direct result of human activity. A greenhouse gas is any gas that traps heat in the Earth’s atmosphere, contributing to the so-called Greenhouse Effect. When the proportion of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere rises, the amount of trapped heat that would otherwise have radiated out into space also rises. There are four main types of greenhouse gas: carbon dioxide, methane, water vapour, and nitrous oxide. Simple. The four largest greenhouse gas emitting sectors are construction, transportation, electricity generation, and agriculture [2]. To prevent further climate change, these four sectors must be addressed. There you are, the ABCs about GHGs.

So so simple.

Why is climate change concerning? Well, it has many effects. The ones you already know are rises in both temperatures and sea levels. And its effects are already being seen, they’re not some spectre in the distance. These include more extreme weather and natural disasters. Storms have become more intense and frequent in some parts of the world, droughts in others. We have also witnessed the heightened risk posed by forest fires. Not only are these primary effects scary in and of themselves, they will lead to severe secondary effects. The most concerning is food scarcity and famine due to droughts and water shortages. We will see mass climate migration as a result. We will also see the mass extinction of animals ill-suited to their new climate (though this will happen much, much, much more slowly than people think, we will never “see” it happen). Most frightening, there is a risk of a cascading effect wherein once a tipping point is reached, all hell breaks loose. This could be the mass release of methane from the melting permafrost in the tundra. It could be the collapse of the Gulf Stream. It could be a loss of polar ice caps leading to less heat being reflected outwards towards space. It could be the release of CO2 from the oceans due to rising temperatures. They are hard to predict exactly, but the risk exists nonetheless. Whilst this may all seem hard to wrap your head around, remember this; the effects of climate change have already begun to be noticed and will continue to worsen unless, and potentially even if, we address them.

In response, many governments have set targets surrounding their greenhouse gas (GHGs) emissions. These are usually discussed at the biannual COP meetings following guidance from IPCC reports. These include reaching zero emissions by 2050 or 2060 and interim targets for the meantime. These commitments have been made to ensure that average temperature increases are limited to 1.5°C, or has it now become hopefully under 2°C, in comparison to pre-industrial levels. There are many things wrong with these commitments as they currently exist. The sentiment is nice, I guess, but there’s no plan to actually hit them. And they ignore key areas of emissions completely. Too little, too late.

Solving climate change is hard, in part because it is driven by locked-in behaviours. Our every action drips with oil. Lots of people think the solution is doing the small things like turning off the lights. As Professor David JC MacKay always said, “If everyone does a little, we’ll only achieve a little”. On the topic of Professor MacKay, go read his book Sustainable Energy: Without the Hot Air [3]. Being the legend he was, it’s free to download on his website. If we want to stop climate change, we must do big things.

When you consider the importance of the four main sources of GHGs (transport, food, construction, and electricity generation) to our daily lives, you start to understand just how difficult decarbonisation is. Zero emissions means no flying, no shipping, no eating ruminant meats (cows, dairy products, sheep), no concrete, and no steel as none of these things can be decarbonised. (You can argue that they can, in theory yes, in practice, for the near future you are wrong). What becomes of the world without these key ingredients?! Did I mention that when calculating total emissions included in their targets, countries ignore international flying and shipping because they happen outside of any one country’s jurisdiction? How convenient, especially when you realise both have huge carbon footprints and both cannot be decarbonised, how convenient indeed. It’ll make the achievement of targets easier at least! Yay!

Governments have put forward proposals outlining how they will reach zero emissions as have organisations and scientists. In general, two distinct streams exist when it comes to tackling climate change, the optimists and the pessimists. Governments heavily rely on (unfounded) optimism in their proposals. Some groups have a rather more pessimistic approach to the issue. I shall deal with each in turn.

The optimistic approach to tackling climate change is basically a continuation of the status quo. The market will sing, dance, and magically solve all of our problems [4]. We won’t have to address our behavioural issues and the rich can keep getting richer and richer, a fundamental right you know! The optimists believe that we will see great market led innovation that will result in a decarbonisation that is as equally massive as it is swift. When optimists design proposals, much is left blank or filled with guesses as no one can predict the future state of technology. For example, current optimistic decarbonisation pathways rely heavily on great strides being made in the domains of carbon sequestration (CCS) and hydrogen. In doing this, they might as well hope for miracles in nuclear fusion as there are major flaws with CCS and hydrogen which I will discuss in a future episode. For the optimistic approach to conceivably work, if we want to achieve our 2050 emissions goal, we will have to solve fusion now. Given how long it takes to build conventional fission reactors, as well as their cost, we arguably don’t even have enough time to deploy nuclear fusion on a mass scale even if it did magically start working. In reality, the optimists are foolish gamblers. They are risking quite a lot to ensure the stability of short term profit margins.

& then there are the pessimists. These included the aforementioned Prof MacKay and continue to include Professor Julian Allwood and his research group. I call them pessimists because they are pessimistic about the chances of heroic technological innovation rescuing us. In all fairness, they are better labelled as realists. Sustainable Energy: Without the Hot Air is the realists’ bible. Again, if you are interested in climate change please go read it! Professor Allwood has continued Professor MacKay’s work, and his team have published what I will call the realists’ manifesto, Absolute Zero [5]. It is also a must read, and importantly free! In short, the realistic viewpoint identifies key actions that can be made using today’s technology to achieve absolute zero emissions in the UK by 2050. It’s important to note that the absolute zero emission criterion differs from net zero emissions as it doesn’t allow for the use of unproven CCS technology that would allow GHG emissions to be offset. Absolute Zero’s teachings can be easily applied to any developed nation. Put simply, we must scale renewable energy as quickly as possible whilst also phasing out fossil fuels at the same pace. We must electrify all things that can be electrified, i.e transport like trains and cars, as well as the heating and cooling of buildings. Importantly, we must use less than we currently do as we will not immediately have unlimited clean electricity at our disposal in a zero carbon world. We must eat less meat, and no cow or sheep products. We also mustn’t fly. The world, following these rules, will be a very different place indeed. I, myself, am not very good at following them…

Finally, there is one major question that the pessimists cannot answer that the optimists can. Is it even possible for the Global South to continue to develop and see improvements in quality of life without having a carbon bloom? It is easiest for the developed world to transition because we have already accrued so much wealth and infrastructure with the help of historic greenhouse emissions. No one has yet to lay out a feasible plan that couples improving living standards with achieving zero emissions in the developing world. As no nation has ever leapfrogged the industrial revolution with success, we owe the citizens of the Global South the necessary resources to ensure a just transition. In the end, no matter what we do, those citizens who will face, and are currently facing, the worst impacts of climate change will be the ones least able to mitigate against it.

[1] “Shell and Exxon’s secret 1980s climate change warnings”, Benjamin Franta, The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/sep/19/shell-and-exxons-secret-1980s-climate-change-warnings

[2] “Emissions by sector: where do greenhouse gases come from?”, Hannah Ritchie, Pablo Rosado and Max Roser (2020), Our World In Data, https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-sector

It is worth noting that people define the boundaries of sectors differently, thus the actual percentage of emissions allocated to each sector fluctuates based on the source.

[3] “Sustainable Energy – Without the Hot Air”, David JC MacKay, https://www.withouthotair.com/

[4] As far as I’m aware no book has been published affirming the optimistic belief. Here is a link to a 368 page UK government Net Zero strategy from 2021 that fully embraces the optimistic viewpoint.

“Net Zero Strategy: Build Back Greener”

The pertinent pages are from pages 107-119 on hydrogen technology and 188-196 on CCS. Basically, their plan enables the continuation of the status quo whilst relying on technological advances that haven’t been proven to work at scale.

A book that finds itself in the middle of optimists and pessimists is:

“Not the End of the World – How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet”, Hannah Ritchie, https://www.nottheendoftheworld.co.uk/

This is a funny one, really. To classify Ritchie as an out and out optimist is very disingenuous. Her book is amazing and I love the work Our World in Data is doing. Disclaimer: I have found lots of similarities between what I’ve been writing about and the contents of Ritchie’s chapter on Climate Change. I wrote 2/4 climate change episodes before I had even heard of her book. I think it’s a positive thing that we reached similar conclusions! However, in certain regards Ritchie, and the EA movement who she also references in her book (lol, another shout out to 80,000 hours) are very optimistic about the role of technological innovation. For example, in her book, Ritchie discusses solar panelled flying and hydrogen powered flight. The EA movement more generally really likes the idea of CCS (Carbon capture and storage). My major issue with Ritchie’s book is that it doesn’t address the systemic issues causing climate change and the incredible difficulty we face improving them – see Bibi van der Zee’s critique in The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/jan/04/not-the-end-of-the-world-by-hannah-ritchie-review-an-optimists-guide-to-the-climate-crisis

[5] “Absolute Zero”, UK FIRES, https://www.ukfires.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Absolute-Zero-online.pdf