The Oil Drum: Canada

They don't want bicycles and expensive energy. Anybody speaking out loud about this part will be out of public service before finishing his sentence.

If that statement is true, then we really are all doomed. This is why there are many many doomers out there, they see that even trying to speak about making the types of changes that will eventually be forced upon us through necessity is socially unacceptable. A speaker should be able to get up and tell the crowd that if they don't change their lifestyle they will be dooming hundreds of millions of people, including some in there own country (it's not just a "third world" problem, although they will of course get the worst of it initially) to starvation and death. It's true. As long as leaders are forbidden from speaking the truth by some combination of powerful wealthy interests and crippling cowardice, things will not proceed fast enough.

Just a few years ago, there were another series of concerts like this trying to deal with Aid to Africa (mostly). Has that problem been addressed or are there plans in place to solve the even the lowest of the low hanging problems? Not really; there were a few token gestures, and some extra funding, but it's structural problem, and those in the structure are not going to willingly change it. This includes most of us here (myself too) who quite frankly like most of how things are : non-crowded living, the option for world travel (even if we don't do it), non-backbreaking work, transportation available even if we don't drive, etc.

Planning for changes would work out a lot better than just constant crisis management for the next 100 years. This will require large scale government projects. Few massive projects like this are ever done without direct action from the government (railways, electrification/telephone lines, roadways, water/sewage systems, etc...). This isn't going to happen until things are too late, because most likely things are already too late. We are entering the crisis management stages, but they aren't recognizable because we're in them, and there aren't large-scale "events" to point them out. Things gradually (on a single lifetime basis, not a human history basis) will grind down, fade away, stop working, and change. And it's all being left to chance. That's OK, I suppose, since that's how we got here in the first place, but it doesn't make me comfortable

Let them make the promises, this will allow us to keep them accountable if they are not met. Of course it is absurd to target a 60% reduction by 2050, without a strategy to reach it and without intermediate checkpoints - and making them take legal obligations for this should be the main thing we should focus our efforts on.

How, exactly, will you keep them accountable? So what if "they" agree a strategy with checkpoints. So what if they are bound by “legal” “obligations?” Really, so what?

Do you think you, or whoever, will be able to force these legal obligations to be achieved? Even if that does happen, who cares? After entering the legal process to “force” “them” to do what they said they were going to do, another three years or another five years have passed and climate change has only grown more acute. Do you really mean to say the menace doesn’t know how to manipulate the legal process?

Perhaps we’ll have passed some point wherein the forcings and the feedbacks cannot be ameliorated. So, what good are those legal obligations? What, you’ll fine them? Or confiscate their assets? Or send the executive management team to prison? Maybe you’ll round up the “stakeholders” and send them to prison as well? Wow, I’m totally impressed by this approach. If this is the best we’re going to come up with, I’ll stick to the party and concert methodology. As nothing more is going to be achieved than the “legally binding” crapola, at least I’ll be able to get down and get funky right along with all the other poor ignorant saps dancing next to me.

The problem will not be resolved using the very means that have created the problem in the first place. Climate Change has been co-opted by the very same menace that is busy diluting and denying Peak Oil, and every other crisis facing the biosphere. How can we legislate and litigate our way out of this problem? Frankly, I just don’t see it. Maybe you need to discard your junior high school civics romanticism with something more firmly grounded today’s realities. The menace controls the “legal” process. Not justice, but justice isn’t part of today’s reality.

I wish you all the best in your endeavours, as doomed as they are to failure. The political process as practiced in the west is pretty much just an exercise in theatre. A chance for you to feel like you making a difference and really count. And, it’s all a lie. When a concert designed to raise awareness about climate change is being “sponsored” by General Motors, the game is over. You can turn out the lights. Strike the set. The show’s over.