“This year’s specials include a Greta Thunberg documentary, a David Attenborough extravaganza, James Cameron on whales and Cher rescuing an elephant.”
“In (a discussion between Greta Thunberg and David Attenborough from) “A Year to Change the World, ”Thunberg is unfailingly polite, but you can see what she’s thinking. When she asks if he has ideas for how to “activate” older people into environmental activism, he has nothing to offer, other than to praise her.” (New York Times)
Yes, that’s the issue; how to “activate” people? Older or not. Just maybe 1bio stories can do their little bit to help in that?
The report lists impacts on what UN secretary general António Guterres said was the planet’s “life support system”. Sea levels are rising, coasts are eroding, waters are heating and acidifying and the number of deoxygenated “dead zones” is rising. Marine litter is present in all marine habitats and overfishing was costing societies billions. About 90% of mangrove, seagrass and marsh plant species were threatened with extinction.
(The report authored by UN Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea, excerpts above from The Guardian)
The report is downloadable in 2 volumes – totalling 1090 pages! It clearly is a comprehensive document and of value to professionals in the field. But for most of us the length and complexity make it essentially inaccessible. That is why we need stories woven from the findings of these reports, and solidly linked back to them.
“Researchers fear increasing energy in these eddies could affect ability of Southern Ocean to absorb C02” ‘“The world’s oceans soak up most of the carbon dioxide that humans dump into the atmosphere. The Southern Ocean in particular absorbs about 40% of the entire ocean uptake and much of that uptake is achieved by ocean eddies” Any change in the ocean eddies in the Southern Ocean can … “potentially impact the carbon sink and the ability to uptake carbon that we might continue to emit in the future”
“What could go wrong with this idea? Well, quite a lot”
(Ray Pierrehumbert and Michael Mann, The Guardian)
Some of these ideas are called “geoengineering” elsewhere. My fear is that inaction (or inadequate action) now will force us into these risky projects in future.
Fox News is the leader in primetime viewership (in the USA) according to Nielsen Media Rating.Just one more reason why the trace supporting the 1bio stories needs to be accurate and complete. We will not sway the opinion of the committed Fox viewer by factual analysis, but we do need to solidify the opinion of the silent majority.
It’s the biosphere, stupid! “Our economies, livelihoods and well-being all depend on our most precious asset: Nature” (from “The Economics of Biodiversity: The Dasgupta Review”)
That meets the guidelines for a 1bio story; a clear, vivid, polarizing message and style. It is also short, sharp and clear. And it is based on fact – lots of facts. That’s where things get more complicated and where I need the help of mathematicians and data experts.
This came to my attention by an article in the mainstream media. If you link to it now you may see this warning:
Which shows just how quickly news becomes history. (Which is part of the problem. We get distracted by the next headline. But I digress). This headline is: “Economics of biodiversity review: what are the recommendations? Landmark report says GDP should be ditched as measure of wealth and nature valued to protect wildlife and humans“ The Guardian, Tue 2 Feb 2021
(Note: The actual report is not the subject of this post – I am only using it as an example. For more information I have some quotes at the end)
From the link above we can choose what level of information we want:
“Headline Messages” (each one capable of being a 1bio story. The full “Headline Messages” document contains 5 pages of text (10 pages with covers etc.) Well worth reading – but how many people read 5 pages of text these days?
Or the full report – 610 pages! Very, very few people are willing to work all the way through this (I am working at it – slowly). There is also an abridged version of only 103 pages.
Of the 610 page report 88 pages are references to other papers and reports. No doubt each of those will have a further list of references, all backed by masses of data.
Below that again are the foundations of science, economics, mathematics, logic, standards and so forth. Things we take for granted, but which are often either misunderstood or deliberately misused in constructing counter arguments.
Here is our iceberg diagram around this particular story:
I need help from mathematicians and data scientists. Why?
Because I see 1biosphere.net doing 2 things: 1. Creating 1bio stories AND 2. Backing those stories with a clear link starting from the press release, the headline messages, the report itself, the sources, right through to the foundations. Clearly that second point is a massive effort if “done by hand”. Ideally there should be a way to create that trace and present it to the lay reader. The key issues being:
Computer aided “tracing”, involving data management, possibly machine learning and other mathematical tools.
Presentation in a clear and accessible (probably visualized) manner
Annotated and updated with
Both concurring and opposing viewpoints
Areas of certainty and areas needing further work
If we can create an unbroken trace the story becomes credible. It may not sway minds, but is a brick in the total message. On the reverse, if we see a story and we can show breaks in the trace, or the trace ends before reaching a lower level (e.g. a story copied and embellished endlessly on a loop of social media) then we can discount and, hopefully, replace that story.
In this example the “trace” appears obvious. All the hard work has been done already. However individual points will still need to be clarified. However if we tackle a more specific, local issue, (say water usage in central California) the story, the data and the trace all become more difficult, more emotional and more political (i.e. more Real-Life). (I will try and develop this or a similar example “soon”)
Bottom line: The support work behind the story is as, or more, important than the story itself. It needs specialized methods and skills to do it well.
I do not intend this post to be about “The Dasgupta Review”. But seeing you are here I have added some excerpts to give a glimpse of what it contains.. However I strongly urge you to look at the review directly. It is a rich source of information and analysis.
In large part it contains technical / mathematical economics material. But as you can see from my extracts the author makes many efforts to illustrate the concepts and make them accessible. In addition to the “Headline Messages”, I attach the complete foreword by Sir David Attenborough and then some other random items that caught my attention.
THE HEADLINE MESSAGES
Our economies, livelihoods and well-being all depend on our most precious asset: Nature.
We have collectively failed to engage with Nature sustainably, to the extent that our demands far exceed its capacity to supply us with the goods and services we all rely on.
Our unsustainable engagement with Nature is endangering the prosperity of current and future generations.
At the heart of the problem lies deep-rooted, widespread institutional failure
The solution starts with understanding and accepting a simple truth: our economies are embedded within Nature, not external to it
We need to change how we think, act and measure success:
Ensure that our demands on Nature do not exceed its supply, and that we increase Nature’s supply relative to its current level
Change our measures of economic success to guide us on a more sustainable path.
Transform our institutions and systems – in particular our finance and education systems – to enable these changes and sustain them for future generations.
Transformative change is possible – we and our descendants deserve nothing less.
FOREWORD
“We are facing a global crisis. We are totally dependent upon the natural world. It supplies us with every oxygen-laden breath we take and every mouthful of food we eat. But we are currently damaging it so profoundly that many of its natural systems are now on the verge of breakdown.
Every other animal living on this planet, of course, is similarly dependent. But in one crucial way, we are different. We can change not just the numbers, but the very anatomy of the animals and plants that live around us. We acquired that ability, doubtless almost unconsciously, some ten thousand years ago, when we had ceased wandering and built settlements for ourselves. It was then that we started to modify other animals and plants.
At first, doubtless, we did so unintentionally. We collected the kinds of seeds that we wanted to eat and took them back to our houses. Some doubtless fell to the ground and sprouted the following season. So over generations, we became farmers. We domesticated animals in a similar way. We brought back the young of those we had hunted, reared them in our settlements and ultimately bred them there. Over many generations, this changed both the bodies and ultimately the characters of the animals on which we depend.
We are now so mechanically ingenious that we are able to destroy a rainforest, the most species-rich ecosystem that has ever existed, and replace it with plantations of a single species in order to feed burgeoning human populations on the other side of the world. No single species in the whole history of life has ever been so successful or so dominant.
Now we are plundering every corner of the world, apparently neither knowing or caring what the consequences might be. Each nation is doing so within its own territories. Those with lands bordering the sea fish not only in their offshore waters but in parts of the ocean so far from land that no single nation can claim them. So now we are stripping every part of both the land and the sea in order to feed our ever-increasing numbers.
How has the natural world managed to survive this unrelenting ever-increasing onslaught by a single species? The answer of course, is that many animals have not been able to do so. When Europeans first arrived in southern Africa they found immense herds of antelope and zebra. These are now gone and vast cities stand in their stead. In North America, the passenger pigeon once flourished in such vast flocks that when they migrated, they darkened the skies from horizon to horizon and took days to pass. So they were hunted without restraint. Today, that species is extinct. Many others that lived in less dramatic and visible ways simply disappeared without the knowledge of most people worldwide and were mourned only by a few naturalists.
Nonetheless, in spite of these assaults, the biodiversity of the world is still immense. And therein lies the strength that has enabled much of its wildlife to survive until now. Economists understand the wisdom of spreading their investments across a wide range of activities. It enables them to withstand disasters that may strike any one particular asset. The same is true in the natural world. If conditions change, either climatically or as a consequence of a new development in the never-ending competition between species, the ecosystem as a whole is able to maintain its vigour.
But consider the following facts. Today, we ourselves, together with the livestock we rear for food, constitute 96% of the mass of all mammals on the planet. Only 4% is everything else – from elephants to badgers, from moose to monkeys. And 70% of all birds alive at this moment are poultry – mostly chickens for us to eat. We are destroying biodiversity, the very characteristic that until recently enabled the natural world to flourish so abundantly. If we continue this damage, whole ecosystems will collapse. That is now a real risk.
Putting things right will take collaborative action by every nation on earth. It will require international agreements to change our ways. Each ecosystem has its own vulnerabilities and requires its own solutions. There has to be a universally shared understanding of how these systems work, and how those that have been damaged can be brought back to health.
This comprehensive, detailed and immensely important report is grounded in that understanding. It explains how we have come to create these problems and the actions we must take to solve them. It then provides a map for navigating a path towards the restoration of our planet’s biodiversity.
Economics is a discipline that shapes decisions of the utmost consequence, and so matters to us all. The Dasgupta Review at last puts biodiversity at its core and provides the compass that we urgently need. In doing so, it shows us how, by bringing economics and ecology together, we can help save the natural world at what may be the last minute – and in doing so, save ourselves.”
David Attenborough
EXTRACTS
“Global climate change attracts attention among intellectuals and the reading public not only because it is a grave problem, but perhaps also because it is possible to imagine meeting it by using the familiar economics of commodity taxation, regulation and resource pricing without having to forego growth in material living standards in rich countries. The literature on the economics of climate change … has even encouraged the thought that, with only little investment in clean energy sources over the next few years (say 2% of world GDP), we can enjoy indefinite growth in the world’s output of final goods and services (global GDP). That is a thought that should be resisted…”
“We are embedded in Nature; we are not external to it. No amount of technological progress can make economic growth as conventionally measured an indefinite possibility … Although there has been some recent recognition among a few economists and ecologists of these issues … this understanding remains far from widespread.”
[from pages 27-28 of the full report] – [square brackets indicate my comments]
“Nature is mobile. We weaken the Antarctica ice sheet without ever going there; phosphorus discharge from farms in Minnesota contributes to a deadening of the Gulf of Mexico; emissions of soot from kitchens in the Indian sub-continent affect the circulation patterns of the monsoons; the Green Revolution’s demand for water, fertilisers and pesticides pollute the rivers and ground waters of the Indo-Gangetic Plain; fish in the North Sea eat microplastic originating in markets in the Bahamas; and so on.”
“Much of Nature and the processes governing it are also silent and invisible. The three pervasive features – mobility, silence and invisibility – make it impossible for markets to record adequately the use we make of Nature’s goods and services”
[from pages 30-31 of the full report]
“Figure 2.1 [shows that]…Ecosystems are capital goods, like produced capital (roads, buildings, ports, machines). As in the case of produced capital, ecosystems depreciate if they are misused or are overused. But they differ from produced capital in three ways …:
depreciation is in many cases irreversible (or at best the systems take a long while to recover);
it is not possible to replicate a depleted or degraded ecosystem; and
ecosystems can collapse abruptly, without much prior warning.”
[from page 52 of the full report]
“Human induced habitat destruction is today the leading cause of species extinction. A quarter of all tropical forests have been cut since the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) was ratified [in 1993]… generally speaking, many of the species found across large areas of a given habitat reside in small areas within it. That means habitat loss initially causes few extinctions, but the numbers rise as the last remnants of habitat are destroyed. At current rates of habitat destruction, the peak of extinctions may not occur for a long while, even decades…
….Species numbers cannot be observed directly. So, it is not possible to place bounds on species extinction rates as policy targets when the number of species lies within a large range (perhaps 8 to 20 million). In contrast, habitat destruction can be observed and verified. The approach taken by the CBD in the Aichi Biodiversity Targets of 1992, which was to set limits on habitat destruction and specify Protected Areas is in line with this reasoning. That the targets are far from being met is not a fault in reasoning, it is, as in the case of international targets on carbon emissions, an inability of countries to design an enforcement mechanism.”
[from pages 105-106 of the full report][Bold emphasis is mine]
[from page 182 of the full report – I just like the diagram]
“Job Opportunities From Nature Conservation and Restoration … Compared to other sectors in the economy, investing in Nature may have higher employment returns. Investments in ‘Nature-based solutions’ (NbS) create jobs that typically have low training and education requirements, are fast to establish and require relatively little produced capital for each worker. This means on average, for every US$1 million invested in NbS, close to 40 jobs are created, which is equivalent to around 10 times the job creation rate of investments in fossil fuels.”
[from page 459 of the full report – I am not entirely happy with this analysis. As we phase out fossil fuel related jobs we owe it to the individuals, and communities, to replace the jobs with equally meaningful and remunerated positions. The reference to low training and education may make sense economically but intensifies the justifiable fear of loss of income, meaning and self respect felt by many in the threatened industries, e.g. mining, fishing, logging and the like]
“Every child in every country is owed the teaching of natural history, to be introduced to the awe and wonder of the natural world, and to appreciate how it contributes to our lives. Establishing the natural world within educational policy would contribute to countering the shifting baseline, whereby we progressively redefine ourselves as inhabitants of an emptying world and believe that what we see is how it is and how it will continue to be. This shifting baseline has been termed the ‘extinction of experience’”
Sure it is “just” for the USA, but the tone set (t)here will affect decisions in other countries. The promising steps taken by the Biden administration will most likely be blocked if either the House of Representatives or the Senate change hands.
Historically mid-term elections have seen less voter turnout (voting in the US is not mandatory) and have swung against the party of the president.
The odds of Republican control from 2023 on are very high given the senate is held by a majority of just 1 (actually 0, but a majority of 1 with the casting vote of the vice president) and the House by 7 (out of 435 – Wikipedia)
Let’s look back at the 2020 election results; some 158 million people voted. Of those 81.2 million for President Biden, 74.2 million for the ex-President.
Despite the complexity and biases of the US system there is an obvious answer, and many very, very smart people are trying to make it come true:
We need to get some portion of the 81 million “No Vote” voters to vote, and to vote our way. It only needs a fraction of them, in the right locations, to create a landslide result and so set the conditions for real Environmental Healing – or not.
There are very few days to make a difference > see sidebar
“We are in an emergency. California is on the brink of drought, prompting fears of a new wave of devastating megafires later this year. Rising temperatures could soon make the planet’s tropical regions unlivable for humans. Yet a Guardian investigation recently found that only a small number of major countries have been pumping rescue funds into a low-carbon future.”
“Two years ago, the Guardian announced it was changing the language it uses to talk about the environment, eschewing terms like “climate change” for the more appropriately urgent “climate emergency”. Today, we are joined by others in the news industry, organizations that recognize that a global catastrophe is already here, and that without immediate action, it will get unimaginably worse.
Surprise, surprise; CEO’s think paying more tax is not a good idea.
Bottom line: Great move by the Guardian and all the other associated media organizations. My point re 1biosphere remains; These stories are not influencing enough of the people we need to reach – that silent majority who can move the political and social dynamics. That needs your help.
We are wounding the biosphere. We need to stop, and then heal
My use of the terms “Environmental Crisis” and “Environmental Healing” needs further explanation.
The subject of Environmental Crisis / Healing is huge. Trying to write short, sharp, accessible stories becomes very tough. Maybe I am trying to do too much?
But then that is exactly the point of “1biosphere” – not to reexamine the underlying research, or to once again produce another report, nor to rewrite an article about what we can expect and what needs to be done. Others, far more qualified, more eloquent and with far greater resources have done that valuable work.
What this site is about are 2 things:
First; find those very short stories that can capture the imagination of the currently silent majority and create a political, social and economic environment that will allow Environmental Healing, and
Second; underpin those stories by chains of fact – through those articles, reports and research – to show 1bio stories to be verifiably “true”.
And it needs your help.
In “The Idea” for 1bio I define the biosphere as being that closed system where all life occurs:
We humans are injuring every part of this system. Many of these cuts, burns and poisonings are beyond the capacity of the biosphere to repair. Some will set off a cascade of further problems if we do not stop making the wounds bigger every day. That is why it is a crisis.
The biosphere does not care. It will go on in one way or another. But we need to care, because each injury to the system will rebound on us – biologically, economically, socially and spiritually. The more we wound the system, the more we will be hurt in return.
We can’t escape that reality. There is no alternate biosphere. We are physically part of it. We are all inside it, together.
Of course there are deniers and vacillators. They are not stupid. They are intelligent, quick witted and can see where this is going. There will be costs! Costs not just in money terms, but in comfort, luxury, entitlements, rights. They can see these costs and are unwilling to pay the price. So they develop their own stories – sharp, compelling, vivid stories – promising an easy road to the future. Taken at face value their stories are more attractive than ours. But they lack the supporting chain of facts. And that is something we need to tackle as well.
By Environmental Healing I simply mean, first, stop harming the biosphere and, second, reverse the harm done – if that is even possible.
Practically every part of the biosphere is undergoing its own crisis. Each one of these interacts with the others, compounding the difficulty of description, analysis and prediction.
With that said here are some “bullet points” of the Environmental Crisis:
GLOBAL WARMING
Global Warming with all the consequences; Climate Change, Sea Level Rise, Intensity of Weather Events and so forth, captures most attention. It is first because of the many negative effects and the size of the potential economic harm.
I also believe that this is top of the list because it can be treated as a technical problem. We speak of Gigatons of CO2, trapping of solar radiation, feedback loops, albedo and global average temperature changes in fractions of a degree. We speak of the remedies in equally technological terms; carbon dioxide sequestration, solar PV, pumped storage, electric vehicles, advanced SMRs, shoreline protection, disaster resilience, ESG, geoengineering.
MINING of MINERALS and COAL
Destruction of environment, pollution from the mining operation, tailing dumps and waste lagoons of toxic materials. Pollution of streams and groundwater. Health effects on the workers and the surrounding communities. Destruction of significant sites – biological, archeological and spiritual.
Phosphorus mining tailings and pond. Riverview, Florida
Juukan Gorge, Western Australia. Site of human occupation for 46,000 years. Before and after mining activity.
LIQUID and GAS FOSSIL FUELS
Quite apart from the CO2 released when these fuels are burnt (Really – we unearth these million year old treasures and burn them?) we have accidental releases of gas and/or oil during production, transport and refining. We have negative effects on all the living things near these sites. Fracking chemicals.
SOIL
Agricultural practices, Deforestation, Salt pans when farming marginal land, Monocultures.
Too many of us – we have tripled since I went to school. It’s a hugely difficult subject but has to be discussed. We consume too much. We waste too much. We already have climate wars and climate refugees. There will be more. We cling to artificial concepts like nations, religions and politics. The biosphere does not recognize any of those things.
—
The biosphere has gone through crises before. Many in the long history of the planet, some within one human generation.
The ancient crises; climate change, ice ages, meteorites, did massively change the biosphere and cause vast destruction. But the repairs and adjustments were made over time spans we can barely imagine. We, with our frantic lives, do not have the luxury of evolutionary or geologic time.
Two recent examples are the acid rain problem of the 1970 to 1990’s and the ozone holes, which came to public attention at much the same time. Both were overcome, against resistance of course, but nevertheless with reasonable success and without huge economic impact.
For acid rain the answer was scrubbing the exhaust gases of coal fired plants to reduce the emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide.
The ozone holes over each pole were tackled by an international agreement to phase out CFCs and Halons. The task is not over yet; NASA predicts the ozone holes will not return to 1980 levels until 2075.
There are lasting scars from both crises; eroded stone ornaments, disrupted plant and animal life, health issues such as skin cancers, breathing difficulties etc.
If we could so “easily” resolve those crises why can’t we do the same for the current Environmental Crisis? Because:
The problems were essentially technical and had known technical solutions
The problem could be solved by a relatively small number of corporations acting under public and government pressure and in their own self interest
The problems, although widespread, were not global
Most people did not have to change their way of life (except in some trivial ways; e.g. if you had an old car and could not obtain CFC to recharge the AC then the repair was very pricey)
Politics was simpler; governments made binding decisions and enforced them
Sadly none of those conditions apply to what we face today.
We are wounding the biosphere. We need to stop, and then heal
You must watch “Seaspiracy”. (Says he after eating tuna from a “Dolphin Safe”, recyclable can)
It’s not easy to watch. If you have children preview it first and then decide if you want them to see.
There have been a lot of comments attacking faults in the film. In particular some Environmental Organizations feel they are wrongly portrayed. You will need to make your own judgement.
Let me relate some minor personal experience in this area. 40 (+) years ago, I worked on a computer program for the Western Australian Fisheries Department. I mention the years only to show that we knew the problems then – and the solution; stop or severely limit fishing. That knowledge has been ignored by large parts of the global industry for a long time.
A simple diagram shows what happens under intensive fishing. First, when stocks are plentiful the more you fish, the more you get. Then comes a phase where no matter how hard you fish, you get no more. That is followed by a massive collapse. We saw it happen with the Western Australian Salmon (not a relative of the “real” salmon) and to a lesser extent with the prawn fisheries in North-Western Australian waters. The over-simplified sketch below gives gives some idea of what I am talking about:
“Effort” is a combination of time spent at sea (transit time and actual fishing time), time the equipment is deployed, size and type of equipment (size of net, mesh etc. or length of longline, number of hooks etc.)
On the diagram “Time” is not scaled. It depends. The first 2 phases can be years or decades. The collapse is sudden. For the south WA (Western Australia) salmon fisheries the collapse happened very quickly (3 years? – I am happy to be corrected) and led to the effective abandonment of the shore based industry.
A similar trend is shown in the “Seaspiracy” film and is hinted at in Kipling’s “Captains Courageous” about the Grand Banks cod fishery in the late 1890’s.
The Grand Banks fishery has never recovered to the fabled times of the 1700 and 1800’s or the even more massive industrial hauls of the 1970’s.
The WA salmon has recovered, as have the prawns. However the industry around the south coast has not grown back (again – I am happy to be corrected). The prawn fishing is regulated.
Defendants of industrial fishing say that recovery does and will happen. True, the species is not extinct, but it takes a drastic reduction, or total cessation, of fishing, plus a lot of time for the recovery. In the meantime whole ecosystems are out of balance. Also the people and communities who have invested their lives and their money in the fishing industry go through massive distress.
At about the same time as my little diagram, 40+ years ago, we would see Chinese and/or Taiwanese fishing boats in Fremantle (WA). They came in to refuel and get supplies. They had lines strung fore and aft. On these lines were hundreds of shark fins drying in the sun. We shrugged our shoulders; the ocean was big and if they really liked shark fin soup, why not? We did not know and did not ask what they did with the sharks. I thought they would be in the hold. Shark was good enough for the local fish and chip shop, so it was a reasonable deduction. At the time we did not realize the sharks were just trash and thrown away, dead or alive.
Now of course the Chinese/Taiwanese boats are bigger and they get resupplied at sea. So they can spend more time fishing and do not have to enter “hostile” ports where snoopy people may take photos or inspect their holds.
Which brings me to modern fishing. I found this archived 2010 article in a surfing magazine. It shows a kite installed on Germany’s largest fishing vessel the “Maartje Theodora” to make the vessel more efficient while in transit and during open ocean fishing operations. According to a spokesperson: “As one of Europe’s biggest fishing companies, we consider it an important duty to not only promote sustainable fishing, but to take a leading role in making it a reality. For us, sustainable in this context means acting in a manner that makes both good economic and ecological sense”
Call me cynical but then we have this article from Greenpeace in 2012 – (summary translated from German): “14 Dec 2012. German Fisheries Monster Caught in Illegal Fishing.
The largest European fishing vessel, the “Maartje Theodora”, was arrested by French authorities for illegal fishing. On board the German super trawler, the inspectors found two million kilos of fish that was caught contrary to European regulations. Greenpeace had previously criticized the shipping company for its fishing methods”.
Below is a breakdown of the “Biden $2 trillion plan – which is great news but will be subject to a lot of tough negotiation. And here’s a hypothetical question: “Should a country spend the same amount on “green” programs as on the military (approx $5.6T over 8 years), or more?”
It’s great news, especially after the last 4 years.
But now it will be a fight for every penny. The minority leader in the US senate already announced that “I’m going to fight them every step of the way…”. We can be sure the plan will undergo alteration in the next few months. And who knows what will happen to it over the next 8 years.
We can also be sure that the military budget will be passed year after year.
Almost certainly the economic, social and national security implications of the Environmental Crisis will be larger than anything facing our military. The budget to fight the crisis should be the same or bigger than the military one.
Money is our madness, our vast collective madness. (D. H. Lawrence)
Given my personal relationship with money it is the height of folly to even approach this subject. However, elsewhere I state that the Environmental Activists and their organizations are vastly outspent by players in “The Economy”. So here I quote some numbers just to support that contention.
As a yardstick let me use the Earthshot Prize. This is a sought after award introduced in 2020, with the first five winners to be announced in 2021. Each winner will receive 1 million pounds to “inspire and celebrate new, collaborative action to meet the environmental challenges we face”.
The Earthshot Prize then totals $US 65 million (approx) over 10 years (£50 million). That sum is enhanced by the prestige, support and publicity surrounding the prize. It is very generous and will no doubt be leveraged many times over by the recipients and the Earthshot Alliance.
—
$65 million is:
The net income of Apple Inc. in 10 hours (2019)
Jeff Bezos’ net worth increase in 5 hours
Lockheed Martin’s sticker price for one F35 aircraft (plus another $65 million to fly it for about a year)
The value of oil shipped from Saudi Arabia in 3 days
5 ½ minutes of super-bowl (US “football”) ads ($5.6 million per 30 seconds)
A bit less than the value of Everydays: the First 5,000 Days; a mosaic of every image that artist Mike Winkelmann, who goes by the name Beeple, has made since 2013. The artwork is attached to a non-fungible token (NFT), a digital certificate of authenticity that runs on blockchain technology.
…which handily provides a segue into crypto-currencies and NFTs
—
Crypto-currencies
When I saw the headline “Bitcoin uses more electricity than Argentina” my immediate reaction was to add Bitcoin, and all the other crypto currencies into the “bad” column. Actually the “more bad” column, given my previous dismissal of crypto as a worthwhile investment (a predictable part of my relationship to money).
Then, inevitably, there is an opposing view in Forbes, which makes me rethink crypto. Does it need to go in the “Maybe not so bad” column? Is it a valuable tool that allows fast and easy money transfers safe from inflation, exchange fees, dictatorial governments and confiscation? Is the energy cost justified?
Based on the Forbes article here are some comparison numbers and a concluding quote:
Electricity use in 1 year:
Bitcoin 12 TWh
Gold mining 132 TWh
Banking 140 TWh
Grid loss US 200 TWh (my calculation; 4009 TWh generated, 5% loss)
“The bottom line is this: as renewable energies become cheaper, bitcoin will become greener – and so will everything else. There is no question that bitcoin, the blockchain, cryptographic currencies, and DLT [Distributed Ledger Technology] protocols must all seek to lower their energy consumption and reduce their carbon footprints – but we all do: central banks, financial institutions, the mining sector… and you and me.”
—
The Biden green plan
$3 to maybe $4 trillion !
If the numbers being reported are correct that would be a green and gold* moment for the Environmental Crisis.
But there are a few issues:
The actual numbers are hard to parse. It is just a plan, the numbers are under discussion.The legislation will go through lengthy negotiations and amendments before being passed.
Green spending is tied into a huge number of other priorities; highways, bridges, broadband, water and sewer lines, railways, ports, the grid, human infrastructure such as housing and child care etc.
Finally all of this spending is subject to reversal if power in the US government shifts again. Hence 1biosphere and the call for stories to generate political action.
*which happen to be the national colors of Australia. The national colours, green and gold, hold a treasured place in the Australian imagination. Long associated with Australian sporting achievements, the national colours have strong environmental connections. Gold conjures images of Australia’s beaches, mineral wealth, grain harvests and the fleece of Australian wool. Green evokes the forests, eucalyptus trees and pastures of the Australian landscape.
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