If you don’t know where you are going, you may wind up someplace else. – Yogi Berra
Without a clear goal and a plan to get there all you have is ambition. COP26 this November is our best opportunity to move from false promises to honest steps with a clear timeline and a roadmap.
The goal is to decrease carbon dioxide emissions and go back to a safe concentration of 350 parts per million before it is too late. There are different ways to reduce carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The fossil fuel industry dreams of man-made carbon capture and storage (CCS) in order to continue emissions, but no one has done it. The best way is to reduce the demand, improving efficiencies and eliminating waste is to do more with less.
Let’s see what has worked, as if you were sitting in front of your kids and family. Your kids deserve the truth.
Natural climate solutions
Protecting old-growth forests, letting trees grow, guarding wetlands, restoring the soil without tilling, fertilizers and herbicides, eliminating plastic, etc. Respecting nature and all life forms is essential to maintain biodiversity.
Eliminating fossil fuel subsidies removes the incentive to increase carbon emissions.
Respecting peaceful climate activists and eliminating legislation that treats concerned citizens as terrorists.
Carbon fee and dividends to reward energy efficiency and conservation, and make polluters pay.
Promoting local farmers, shopping at farmers’ markets, and increasing community participation.
Unnatural destruction
Deforestation, coal mining, shale fracking for oil and gas, and reducing fuel efficiency for internal combustion engines, are some of the acts against nature. As long as fossil fuels and wood pellets are subsidized, promises and lies will delay the transition from combustion to clean energy.
The power of lies
On May 9, when the Colonial pipeline was hacked, word spread like fire. People panicked and lined up for gas, but there was plenty of gasoline stored in large deposits. Pipelines are not like garden hoses. They have distribution centers and storage tanks along the way, with trucks making scheduled deliveries to gas stations. There was no need to panic.
We need to learn how to live under uncertainty, keep calm, stay informed, and know when to act.
Lies are deadly
Why have we waited to act on climate change? The human mind works in mysterious ways. Lies have power even when we know they’re lies. There is a natural tendency to believe comfortable lies instead of uncomfortable truths and to trust our assumptions instead of looking at the evidence. The mind focuses on perceived immediate threats and ignores the long-term consequences of inaction.
Out with the old
Electric utilities profit by selling kilowatt-hours, not reducing emissions. “Helping our members work together to keep the lights on – today and in the future,” is their mantra. More power generation creates more carbon emissions.
Providing energy services to increase energy efficiency is a better business model and the way to eliminate carbon emissions. Less power, fewer emissions.
Fake ambitions
Exxon Mobil wants to keep selling oil and gas pretending to have climate solutions in the US and Europe. Consider the Houston carbon storage concept. “ExxonMobil believes the U.S. could establish a CCS Innovation Zone along the Houston Ship Channel… The CO2 would be piped into natural geologic formations thousands of feet under the sea floor.” There is no plan, just reckless ambition.
Drax lies and ambition
Drax’s strategy is based on lies. Burning forests as “biomass,” Drax has increased carbon emissions and air pollution, not the amazing results they tell their shareholders. The 2020 Annual Report says, “Drax had absolute carbon emissions of our generation reduced by over 85% between 2012 and 2020 and the ambition to be a carbon-negative company by 2030.”
Drax is asking the UK government for new funds to kickstart the next round. “With the right investment framework from government, work to build Drax’s first two BECCS units could get underway as soon as 2024, ready to start capturing and storing millions of tonnes of CO2 a year in 2027.”
Like Yogi Berra said, “If you don’t know where you are going, you may wind up someplace else.”