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Introduction

Immediate Action Is Needed To Save The Future

The central problem which the world faces in its attempts to avoid catastrophic climate change is a contrast of time scales. In order to save human civilization and the biosphere from the most disastrous effects of climate change we need to act immediately, but it is difficult to mobilize public opinion behind urgently needed action because the most severe disasters due to global warming belong to the long-term future. 

However, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in their October 2018 report, used strong enough language to wake up at least part of the public: the children whose future is at stake. Here is an excerpt from a speech which 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg made at the Davos Economic Forum in January, 2019: “Our house is on fire. I am here to say, our house is on fire. According to the IPCC, we are less than 12 years away from not being able to undo our mistakes. In that time, unprecedented changes in all aspects of society need to have taken place, including a reduction of our CO2 emissions by at least 50%.

“Here in Davos – just like everywhere else – everyone is talking about money. It seems money and growth are our only main concerns.

“And since the climate crisis has never once been treated as a crisis, people are simply not aware of the full consequences on our everyday life. People are not aware that there is such a thing as a carbon budget, and just how incredibly small that remaining carbon budget is. That needs to change today…”

Money drives the mania of growth

“Anyone who believes in indefinite growth in anything physical, on a physically finite planet, is either mad or an economist”. Kenneth E. Boulding (1910-1993)

Economists (with a few notable exceptions) have long behaved as though growth were synonymous with economic health. If the gross national product of a country increases steadily by 4 percent per year, most economists express approval and say that the economy is healthy. If the economy could be made to grow still faster (they maintain), it would be still more healthy. If the growth rate should fall, economic illness would be diagnosed. However, it is obvious that on a finite earth, neither population growth nor economic
growth can continue indefinitely.

Undoubtedly even the most growth-mad economists realize that endless growth on a finite planet is a logical impossibility. But with self-imposed myopia, they refuse to look farther than a decade or two into the future. All this has been changed by the climate crisis, since saving the long-term future for our children and grandchildren is today the most urgent of tasks. The long-term future of human civilization and the biosphere must now be given the highest priority. It is an emergency.

Our entire economic system must be reformed

Old ideas and old economic indicators can no longer serve us. Seen from an ecological perspective, the gross national product of a country does not indicate how well the economy is doing, but almost the reverse. GNP has become a measure of how fast an economy is destroying the environment.

Lifestyle change but not unhappiness

The urgent actions needed to avoid catastrophic climate change imply lifestyle changes, but we will not necessarily become less happy. Do we really enjoy sitting in traffic jams? We can still be happy when use of private automobiles (except when absolutely necessary) is replaced by bicycles and public transport. We can still be happy without air travel for recreational purposes. We can still be happy with the smaller families which will be needed to stabilize and ultimately reduce global population.

Climate and social justice addressed simultaneously

The highly successful social an economic systems of the Scandinavian countries, together with their excellent renewable energy policies demonstrate that the climate emergency can be addressed while simultaneously reducing economic inequality and providing needed services such as free medical care, social security and free higher education.

We can afford the Green New Deal

The Green New Deal concept, currently advocated in the United States and many other countries, aims at simultaneously addressing the climate emergency 0and socio-economic issues. It advocates massive governmental action to create renewable energy infrastructure, simultaneously addressing unemployment through green jobs. Critics say “We can’t afford it.” They are wrong. What we cannot afford is inaction.

In a sense, the cost of inaction is incalculably high. At stake is the entire future of human civilization and the biosphere. Our children’s future and our grandchildren’s future will be lost if we do not take rapid action to avoid catastrophic climate change.

Nevertheless, an estimate of the cost of climate inaction has been made by Dr. Gideon Polya in an article entitled “Inescapable $200-250 Trillion Global Carbon Debt Increasing by $16 Trillion Annually”2. Here is a quotation from the article: “Carbon Debt is simply the damage-related cost of greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution that if not addressed now
will inescapably have to be paid by future generations. However GHG emissions continue to rise inexorably and there is no global program to draw down CO2 and other GHGs from the atmosphere. While young people are now vociferously demanding massive climate action, inescapable global Carbon Debt is $200-$250 trillion and increasing by $16 trillion each year.”

We can easily finance the Green New Deal by making deep cuts in military expenditure, which currently costs the world $1.8 trillion per year, and by raising taxes on the super-rich. Most voters are in favor of greater economic equality and a safe long-term future for their grandchildren. We owe it to future generations and the biosphere to act now!

We thank John Scales Avery, a renowned intellectual, EACPE board member, and theoretical chemist at the University of Copenhagen, for giving us permission to reproduce his latest book for EACPE.