Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
The output of COP26 needs to be, as BreakThrough put it, “a ‘big minus’ in emissions, not ‘net zero’ emissions”. But it also needs to communicate acceptance an honest and a truthfulness, that the climate and ecological emergency goes far far deeper than just electric cars and heat pumps, it demands a fundamental reimagining of everything.
These reports show that the two most popular carbon dioxide removal methods likely to be funded, with taxpayer money, generate more CO2 than they capture.
COP26 will be a fight over different possible futures, a battle between social movements and entrenched power; between those desperate to defend the world, and those who prefer to preserve the world order; between reality and spin.
As the oil and gas industry achieves success in pushing the world towards widespread adoption of methane-based blue hydrogen, some unexpected voices are calling out the industry on its deception of selling blue hydrogen as an affordable and clean source of energy.
When advocates support NZ2050 they are tacitly supporting a dangerous agenda leading up to COP 26 in Glasgow that will codify an unsustainable pathway with continuing high fossil fuel use, dangerous “offset” trade-offs, and unacceptable risks of unstoppable climate warming.
It might seem odd to find supporters of climate action debating the merits of a concept that science shows to be essential for halting climate change, and which is accordingly embedded at the heart of the defining global agreement.
Fossil fuel companies could face legal challenges over their misleading advertising, after a DeSmog investigation uncovered the extent of their “greenwashing”.
If someone is making money from oil, coal or gas but tries to persuade us that they are on our side on the climate crisis, and they’ve got a way to tackle it without stopping burning fossil fuels – that is greenwash.
The promotion of ‘junk agroecology’ initiatives opens up the possibility of greater greenwashing of socially and environmentally destructive forms of production, and more deeply entrenches the unjust dynamics which have led to the current crises.
There is an obvious comfort in believing that life can continue as normal despite the climate emergency. This is likely the reason that studies of the remarkable carbon capturing potential of trees have received an outsized amount of public attention in recent years.
Learning to live without the myth that we can keep sailing forever may be daunting, but it’s the only way to keep from drowning. In the end, it may not be so bad to live in a world that is more than the sum of its parts.
Emergencies tend to reveal our true priorities. When our house is burning down or the storm waters are flooding in, we hold on to what we value most, and leave the rest behind.
