1st Video Message to Christiana Figueres during the COP talks at Warsaw

Gatwick's Chief Executive offers to fall on his sword

Dear Steve,

I note your brave and selfless decision to resign if Gatwick is unsuccessful in getting the second runway in London. It is so good to see leading British business men imbued with the tradition of the Japanese Samurai who preferred to fall on their swords rather than admit defeat. It was of course a pity that such testosterone charged courage would also lead them to attacking Pearl Harbor and the subsequent atomic bombing of their cities, but I am sure historical analogies like this will not interest you.

It is a pity that you cannot find the same courage to speak out against the unsustainable expansion of aviation in the face of runaway climate change.

The good thing, (if it is a good thing) is that the worst case scenarios are all happening far quicker than we expected. The Arctic Sea Ice is collapsing, methane releases have started, economies are collapsing, food shortages are starting, Australia is on fire again and I could go on and on - but as you clearly can't be bothered understanding what is going on there is no point in me going on at you.  So by the time your second runway is built, assuming that you have not already impaled yourself on your sword, no one will be flying anywhere. That is apart from the American Military who may be interested in using it to support the climate change wars they are already war gaming for.

Kevin Lister

Further letter to Sir Howard Davies

Further letter to Sir Howard Davies following his BBC Radio 4 interview were without any remorse or contrition he states that he is dropping his green concerns and will push for an addition runway. How do we reconcile this with our attempts to educate our young people to care for the environment and show altruism to each other?

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Dear Sir Howard,

After listening to you on Radio 4 this morning and having read and responded to your speech last night, it is hard not to feel total rage with your arrogance in the interview.

You said this morning that you are rejecting environmental concerns and “Turning it (your view that aviation can expand and meet climate change targets) up to see if anyone can knock down our argument, on the assumption that we continue to get fuel efficiency of new aircraft and also we see decarbonisation elsewhere in the economy.”

This is fundamentally wrong and an abuse of power. It is not for us to knock down your arguments on climate change. It is for you to demonstrate that your proposals are compatible with UK carbon targets and climate science in general, that aviation will make enormous efficiency improvements, that biofuels can be grown without destroying the environment and the rest of the economy will decarbonise painlessly. You are unable to prove a single one of these. Despite this failure you conclude new runways should be developed.

It beggars belief that you make this arrogant decision little more than a week after the IPCC report has highlighted the deadly state our climatic system is in. It is hard to understand how you can do this. Did you read this report? Are you so arrogant as to think it does not apply? Do you think some knight in shining white armour is going to solve climate change? Are you too frightened to make the right decision? If you can't answer any of these can you at least drop the word 'independent' from the title of your commission and prevent the charade of people thinking that it is worthwhile submitting evidence into it. 

Yours sincerely,

Kevin Lister 

Response to Sir Howard Davies speech on Airport Capacity

Dear Sir Howard,

Having read your speech today, firstly let me congratulate you on the in depth analysis that you have carried out and the range of view points that you have considered.

My observation on your comments (in italics) follow:

1. “We are grateful to all those who have responded and helped us in our work. Of course in some cases, at airports or in airlines, for example, one may argue that it is their job to do so. But many others, in local action groups or environmental organisations, have devoted much personal time to preparing well-considered responses to the many questions we have posed.”

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

After having devoted considerable time making submissions to this commission, its predecessor the sustainable aviation consultation and other parliamentary committees it is gratifying to see your acknowledgement of the efforts that concerned citizens have gone to.

I trust that with your comment you also appreciate that the dice is hugely loaded towards the large aviation corporations. From a purely logistical perspective, it is far easier for them to continue submitting to consultations such as this than it is for members of the public who have to balance the time for research and preparation with the normal day to day business of work and family life. It is also emotionally draining repeatedly explaining the severity and consequences of climate change.

But the loading of the dice is done in ways that are far more subtle and subversive towards supporting the goals of the industry. Many people are unable to comment on the climate change and environmental limitations that we inevitably face for fear of losing their job. No one in the aviation industry, oil industry, motor industry, travel industry and many others would have the courage to speak loudly against the aviation industry. To do so, would almost certainly invite dismissal.

Indeed even in education which should be the bastion of progressive thought, I have found myself in trouble with my organisation for stating the obvious in debates such as this.

The final loading of the dice against environmentalists is what they have to say is what nobody wants to hear. Government's are not elected on the basis of the closing down airports and tackling climate change, but ensuring that somehow the status quo of economic growth can be preserved despite this being impossible. For this, they have the full backing of the press. So on these matters, governments listen to industry and then conjure up large and plausible words to make it sound like they are taking climate change seriously and listening to environmentalists. I would suggest that despite your efforts, you will have taken more soundings from industry than from climate change scientists. It is hugely concerning that your speech makes no mention of the last IPCC report despite it only being published one week ago. It is equally concerning when in this country we have world leading expert centres such as the Tyndal Centre that you have not solicited information from. Prior to your next report, I would challenge your organisation to take soundings on this matter from Prof Kevin Anderson who has done considerable research on the impacts of aviation on climate change.

I trust also that you appreciate that many thinking people are now terrified about the emerging disaster of climate change, but feel powerless to act. Many of these concerned people would neither know that this commission is taking place nor feel adequately qualified to make a worthwhile submission – yet their fear of the future remains justified. This places a special onus on your commission to ensure environmental considerations are given their full weight, and not simply moved to one-side by the overwhelming response load that the aviation industry is able to muster.

2. “Official and industry forecasts of demand for air travel have been systematically over-optimistic. Successive Department of Transport forecasts have recently been reduced, since the financial crisis and associated recession. That is partly a function of lower GDP growth, which is a strong driver of demand, but also a result of higher oil prices, which have increased the cost of flying aeroplanes.”

In your demand forecasting paper you never acknowledged the interconnectivity of the different aspects of our economy. The financial crisis of 2008 had its roots in the rapidly increasing oil prices that burst the bubble of speculation that drives the economy. Since that date the global economy has remained on life support through a combination of quantitative easing, exceptionally low interest rates and inflation to transfer wealth from savers to borrowers. These solutions are not sustainable. Even these exceptional efforts have hardly boosted economic growth and compared with times past the recovery is moribund. The biggest message of the 2008 crisis is that the economic system we take for granted is fundamentally flawed and the same drivers that caused the crisis haunt us still today. This persistent overhead of uncertainty is leading the US economy to the unprecedented point of a default on their bonds. As an ex-financier, I am sure that I do not need to impress on you the severity of this with its potential to blow out the water demand forecasts and availability of capital for investment.

3. “While only 6% of UK carbon emissions today are associated with air travel, that proportion could rise sharply as other sectors reduce their emissions. If we allowed unlimited growth in air traffic, that would impose high costs on the rest of the economy if the overall target is to be met, for example, pushing up domestic heating bills as the energy sector has to decarbonise more quickly.”

This is an interesting choice of words. 6% is a big slice of the pie, and as you point out it is set to increase.

More significantly the government's plans to decarbonise the economy are not going well. I refer you to the Government's document, The Carbon Plan: Delivering our low carbon future. It is ironic that with respect to aviation it boldly states in section 35 that, “Emissions from aviation will be capped by being part of the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) from 2012, ensuring that any increases in aviation emissions are offset by reductions elsewhere in the EU economy, or internationally.” As you are aware this will no longer be the case, but more importantly it sets the tone for repeated failures in this paper. It again boldly claims, “New low carbon power stations – a mix of carbon capture and storage, renewables and nuclear power – will be built in the 2020s.” Again, none of this is viable. After the Fukishima disaster has irradiated the entire Pacific, nuclear power is looking less and less of an option. None of the plausible words about carbon capture and storage have been able to overcome the thermodynamic limitations inherent with its operation and today we have exactly zero carbon capture and storage projects operational in the world. Not only is the aviation industry struggling to cuts its CO2 emissions, but so is every other industry. As a result global CO2 emissions are increasing super exponentially.

I have pointed out in past submissions the danger of this to social stability. The poorest in society will be priced out of staple energy and food due to peak oil and climate change. The proposal of the aviation industry is that they should be able to price this weakened majority from access to further resources so that the richest minority can continue flying. This is the only outcome from the carbon trading proposals that the industry is proposing, it is fundamentally an act of aggression against society’s weakest.

4. “But none of the submissions made to us have suggested that there are transformational gains to be had. It is true that larger aircraft, like the Airbus A380, could deliver some additional capacity in terms of passenger numbers. New aircraft in each market segment are likely to be a little larger than their predecessors (as well as being quieter and more fuel-efficient). But airline fleets change slowly and the direction for travel is not all one way (for example, some new Boeing 787s may replace larger 747s)”

This seems to be a misinterpretation of the competing strategies of the aviation industry. The A380 was built to enhance the existing the hub and spoke model of aviation by allowing higher density operation on the main routes. By contrast the initial market of the B787 was to support desire of airlines to move to a point-to-point business model. It should be noted that both of these significantly increase CO2 emissions. The A380 increases emissions by simple virtue of its size and the increased number of people that it allows in the aviation transport network, many of whom will be using connecting flights. The B787 however is potentially far worse. Its initial design was laid down in 2003/4 at a time of still relatively low oil prices. Boeing initially considered a higher speed subsonic plane but were persuaded by their customers to build an economical long haul plane suitable for point to point operations. Sustaining this mode of operation inherently requires a much bigger total fuel burn and a substantial increase in aviation business to support it. It was also a solution that the aviation industry saw to overcome potential capacity restrictions at hub airports.

Thus to say that B787 will replace B747s gives a limited picture of the strategic intent of the B787 and the potentially devastating environmental impact of moving to a point to point network.

The point to point model is much more difficult for environmental movements to counter as protests are needed at a wide range of airports. It thus incumbent for your commission to recognise that the B787 strategy is also effectively a route for the aviation industry to circumvent environment protest and to take a harder line with the point to point model.

5. “The best outcome [on climate change] would clearly be a global deal on aviation.”

The aviation industry have been unable to come up with anything even approaching a global deal, and given that it has failed every time it has tried, it is naivety to believe that it will suddenly start succeeding. Turkeys don't vote for Christmas and organisations with billions of pounds invested in capital equipment don't vote for contractions that will leave these idle, especially when they have huge interest payments to meet.

6. “Growth beyond that, unless current assumptions about fuel efficiency and the use of alternative fuels prove to have been overly pessimistic, would put great pressure on the rest of the economy to achieve further carbon reductions, which could be very costly.”

As I have argued in previous submissions, assumptions about fuel efficiency and alternative fuels are already provably wrong. As planes are now almost fully optimised in terms of aerodynamics, structures and thermodynamics any further improvements will be marginal and require huge investments. For this to be recouped, huge numbers of planes need to be sold and operated negating any environmental savings.

The other thrust of the aviation industry is that they can grow their own fuel in some carbon neutral nirvana where global food shortages don't exist and plants are not needed to sequestrate carbon from our polluted atmosphere.

Tesco also tried this approach in 2005. In our correspondence with them where we sought their environmental justifications. They eventually admitted, “When we decided to make biofuels available to customers in 2005, we did so in the belief that they could help customers to reduce their carbon impacts and reduce our dependency on oil as a source for petrol. Since then it has become clear that the impacts of biofuels are more complex” before dropping their entire biofuel marketing campaign. Since then, Terry Leahy went on to warn about the dangers biofuels impose to food security and in a talk on the issue he belatedly stated “we should think things through before acting, so that we do not suffer from unintended consequences.” It is therefore incredible that the aviation industry cannot be bothered to think through the consequences of their proposals, especially when the evidence is so clear all around the world.

It is a hubris that is probably more brutal than any that has gone before. Producing biofuels requires the conscious destruction of ecological resources such as tropical rainforests which are of immense value to the planet now and in the future for absolutely no scientific justification.

7. “Our work so far suggests that doing nothing to address the capacity constraints in our current airport system would not be the right approach. Its likely effect would be to restrict passengers’ choices and it could have unintended consequences for the efficiency and resilience of UK airports, as well as possibly leading to some flights and emissions being displaced to other countries.”

You make this comment immediately after your final summary about being receptive to the constraints of climate change and your well argued points that the best way to constrain aviation emissions is to constrain development of airports. It is quite remarkable. You have seen the evidence but your final adjudication ignores it. Perhaps you might want to explain why. It is setting a bad and dangerous omen for the future.

I thank you for your final request for comments on the analysis you have set out.

Yours sincerely,

Kevin Lister, Bsc (aero eng), MBA, MSC(mathematics)

DECC Statement on Trident and climate change being consistent

In relation to the previous correspondence with the Department for Energy and Climate Change on the request for the carbon footprint for Trident, George Farebrother received the following astonishing reply.

It brutally sums up the government's approach to climate change - use lots of long plausible words and continue with business as usual.

Mon, 27 Feb 2012 at 17:37

27 Feb 2012

Message starred

Re: Your recent enquiry to DECC

from George Farebrother to 1 recipient

Show Details

At 16:57 20/02/2012, you wrote:

Dear Mr Farebrother 

Thank you for your email below. 

On your enquiry about carbon budgets, the recently published Carbon Plan (December 2011) sets out how we are managing these (page 118), which you may find useful in addressing your specific concerns: 
http://www.decc.gov.uk/assets/decc/11/tackling-climate-change/carbon-plan/3702-the-carbon-plan-delivering-our-low-carbon-future.pdf


I appreciate your strong views on Trident. However, it is the policy of the UK Government that, while we are committed to the long-term goal of nuclear disarmament, we believe we can best protect ourselves by the continued operation of a minimum, credible nuclear deterrent. This Government has committed to maintain the deterrent and to renew it as debated and approved by Parliament in 2007. Parliament has taken a conscious and informed decision and we are not sliding towards Trident’s replacement. 

The Government believes that the operation of Trident and the combating of climate change are consistent with each other. This Government has taken ambitious action in cutting emissions and putting us on the path to a low carbon economy. The link to the Carbon Plan above outlines some of the ways in which we are doing this. 

Yours sincerely, 

Bill Lacy

DECC Correspondence Unit

Dear Bill Lacey

Thank you for your email in response to mine of 9 February.

May I commend the comparative promptness of your reply.  Many Government Departments are very dilatory in this matter and often need reminders, sometimes after several months' delay.

I am rather curious about your  paragraph about the value of the nuclear deterrent to the UK.  It has little or no connection to what I actually wrote.  Whether or not Trident provides us with protection is beside the point.

What we need to know is how well Trident's true cost, and the climate change effects it could produce if used, balances against its perceived defence advantages.Meanwhile, I have looked at the December 2011 Carbon Plan.  It is quite impressive in the sense that there are several attractive diagrams and interesting footnotes.  However,  I did a search for "nuclear" and could find references only to nuclear power.  Keywords such as "defence", "weapons" and "Trident" yielded nothing. I invite you to carry out a search in case I have missed something.  Perhaps there is another more relevant document available which assesses the carbon footprint of Trident, taking into account its true costs as outlined in my previous email.  If so, could you let me have a look at it? Failing this, may I re-phrase my previous question.

Is the DECC, perhaps in conjunction with other Government Departments, willing to prepare a carbon budget which takes into account the wider costs and carbon implications of the Trident programme? If the answer is "no"  that, at least, would provide us with useful information.

Yours sincerely

George Farebrother

INLAP/WORLD COURT PROJECT UKSecretary: George Farebrother, 67, Summerheath Rd, Hailsham, Sussex, UK BN27 3DR
+44 (0)1323 844 269 geowcpuk@gn.apc.org, Website http://inlapwcp.webplus.net
 The World Court Project is working to abolish nuclear weapons through the law
because they violate our human values.
It is a project of INLAP, the Institute for Law, Accountability and Peace 

Open letter to Chief Constable Martin Richard

 The absurdity of policing in a collapsing world.

Dear Chief Constable Richards,

I would like to thank you for the policing experience at the Balcombe fracking protest which in micro gives a perfect picture of the macro to come as ecological warfare breaks out across the planet.

My time at the camp has been a strange couple of days of juxtapositions. I have seen in your lines police officers uncomfortable about using their right to violence against women and children intent on protecting their community standing next to other officers delighted to use that right of violence. I formed lasting bonds with people I had only just met while fighting against an organisation that can never be met. I swam in a lake with fellow campaigners knowing that pleasures like this will soon become impossible as the environment gets hijacked and ransacked. But the biggest juxtaposition of all, is seeing the police fighting against the people they are supposedly there to protect.

I asked several of your officers where they thought this protest would end. They claimed that they did not know. I would suggest that they do know, but do not want to acknowledge the obvious. As our ecosystem collapses in the face of climate change and resource depletion and the economy becomes increasingly energy dependent, protests like Balcome will be the norm of your policing efforts, not the exception, and they will become increasingly intense with no end in sight. This is not what your best officers signed up for.

It is clear on speaking to your officers they are under a dangerous misapprehension. They claim that they are neutral, when they clearly are not. It is their job to uphold the law and the law is not neutral. The law of this country makes it legal for a company to destroy the environment, to expand and create greenhouse gases. That same law makes it illegal for anyone to stand in the way and stop the destruction. In no way can this be described as neutral.

As a result of your officers upholding the law and not staying neutral Cuadrilla's lorries deliver the drilling equipment, the drilling goes ahead and the environment that people need is destroyed with the help of your police protection. The protest is already unsuccessful in achieving its objective of stopping the drilling so the same battle of attrition will move to the next site. These protests are tolerated by you only so long as they are ineffective. Effective protest would be to stop the lorries by force now that all appeal to reason and logic has failed.

Cuadrilla wins this round not only because the law is biased towards them, but because your organisation has the monopoly of violence in our society. It allows your officers to assault protesters, but the protesters are not allowed to reply in kind and they also do not do so because they cherish your monopoly of violence. It is a fundamental covenant that society has with its police; society gives police the monopoly of violence because we collectively think that this is in all of our interests and we trust you to use it wisely.

But as ecological warfare commences across the country and the world at large, this covenant is invalidated. The inequalities and biases within the legal system become evident to society at large. Very soon people will conclude on mass that it is no longer in their interests to allow you to maintain your monopoly of violence when the legal system is weighed against them. When this happens society breaks down. It has already started; the inner city riots were the first manifestation where people on mass chose not to obey the law and more will come as food prices escalate in the near future with climate change.

You must by now surely be cognisant of the increasingly harsh laws being passed to stamp down on dissent in the face of the building ecological apocalypse yet your best officers are increasingly reluctant to uphold these laws. It is unavoidable that it will become apparent to them that by enacting the law they cannot remain neutral. You might want to find out how many are on the point of mutinying against this and to question what happens when this inevitably starts. Will you be able to stop it? Will you be forced to replace those thoughtful officers with less thoughtful ones and would you be happy to command this new force of psychopaths? Are you the best person to pre-empt unavoidable transformation by refusing to command your officers to enforce environmental destruction?

I trust that you will correct the dangerous misunderstanding of neutrality that those in your command have and clarify that it is the remit of the police to uphold the law irrespective of the morality of the law, the damage the law does and the way that these laws are passed.

I look forward to your feedback after you have had these discussions.

Thanks for Sir Howard Davies, Independent Airports Commission

Dear Sir Howard,

Many thanks for the public session in Manchester yesterday, I am sure everyone had a great time. The tea and coffee was very nice. When I saw the plate full of Danish Pastries I though it was too good to be true, alas so it turned out to be as as they weren't for me.

I am sure many in the audience may have found your opening remark, “That you wanted the day to tease out the issues on aviation's impact on climate change,” apposite. Unfortunately, I find it just a bit difficult to know what there is to tease out that is not glaringly obvious - atmospheric CO2 will exceed 450 ppm towards the end of this decade making runaway climate change unavoidable, methane releases have started in the Arctic and the ice cap is collapsing, heatwaves and storms are making a mockery of hundreds of years of industrial progress, Syria is in a climate change induced civil war and Egypt is following in its footsteps and yes I could go on and on and on....But certainly the last thing we would want is a pubic session on climate change spoiled by the grubby facts on climate change.

So it was somewhat interesting to hear Heathrow's sustainability director suggesting that all could be made well in the world with a dose of new technology, biofuels and carbon trading.

Just for the record in case it was not noted, I did ask the Heathrow team to explain how new technology would reverse the trend of increasing aviation emissions that has existed since the Wright Brothers' first flight despite new technology being introduced every year from then to now.

Again in case it was not noted, I pointed out that Tesco dropped their campaign to be the UK's leading supplier of biofuel after their complete failure to demonstrate how it can reduce carbon emissions. I asked the Heathrow team to explain what they know that Tesco don't. As the public session debated the merits of biofuel, the last of the Indonesian rainforest is being burnt down and the last of the Orang-utans are being cooked to a crisp. Ignoring the science of climate change and burning every drop of fossil fuels is stupid enough, but burning down the rainforest to grow biofuel is orders of magnitude worse and aviation's plans would accelerate this disaster.

Again in case it was not noted, I asked about Carbon Trading. The poor in our society are facing a triple whammy. The price of basic foods is rising as global warming reduces food production, biofuels are diverting food to fuel and carbon trading will price access to basic energy requirements out of reach. The growing wealth gap has already fuelled inner city riots in the country and I asked how many inner city riots the aviation industry would deem to be acceptable.

Sir John Armitt posited the proposition that in 2050 people would still be wanting to fly in the same way they are now. This is a breathtakingly naïve assumption. In 2050 runaway climate change will be well underway and destroying much of our civilisation. The US department of defence is currently war gaming for climate change conflict in this period. The last thing that people struggling to survive will be thinking about is where they go on holiday, that is unless they are amongst the highest paid civil servants in the country.

In the second session on demand management and in response to Sir John Armitt demonstrating continuing naivety on climate change with his suggestion that more accurate demand forecasts are needed post 2030 for planing purposes I pointed out that our history on forecasting is very poor. The financial models the banks used predicted the risk of recent financial crashes in the order of 1 in 1E50 (1 with 50 zeros behind it). Our ability to predict passenger demand will be equally poor, especially when we continue to exclude the impact of climate change. I made the point that as CO2 continues to rise, our economic resources would have to be directed towards constructing a low carbon economy whilst simultaneously embarking on a wholesale rebuilding of existing infrastructure to cope with climate change impacts. In this future there will be no spare resources for building airports with no business cases. Again, I suggested that Sir John Armitt could answer his own question on the robustness of demand models post 2030 by looking at the increasing cost to Network Rail from climate change and projecting this forward. To help him with his analysis he should consider that we are only in the early stages of climate change and much more serious warming is set to come.

Again for the record, the basis of the CBI argument was that we must have connections to the fast growing economies of China and India. I offered the challenge to the CBI to demonstrate how long they believe these economies will continue growing, given that they have already reached many of the naturalgrowth limits and will face the same dilemmas as us in the near future.

After your deliberations you will of course be tempted by the argument that we must continue to expand because China and others will continue to pollute, and it is correct that China plans to buy the thousands of planes that we subsidise Airbus and Boeing to build. Maybe you should say it how it is – this act of China which is supported by Airbus and Boeing breaches the Durban Platform Agreement  should be considered an act of aggression.

I was asked by a colleague last night why there is any desire to build airports at all. I was stumped, especially when BAA's accounts show the business to be loss making and virtually bankrupt as it struggles with its existing interest payments. The only suggestion I could offer is that as the economy suffered a money supply contraction following the banking crash of 2008, the mathematics of the fraction reserve banking system make it imperative for the government to ensure large amounts of new finance is created to reverse it. This will largely be through new debt backed by equity from Middle Eastern Sovereign funds, helping perpetuate markets for their oil. Ultimately, it does not matter if this is for profitable purposes or not as BAA is certainly not profitable today, it is about creating money and markets for oil. Correct me if I am wrong.

Thanks again for the tea, coffee and a most entertaining time in Manchester. 

Kevin

An other report of the days events is here

Congratulations to the Emir of Qatar

Copy of email sent the Qatar Embassy in London

Dear Ambassador,

I would to like send my congratulations to your new Emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Khalifa al Thanion, for taking over from his father and maintaining the integrity of the dynasty.  I am sure the people of Qatar are equally delighted and pleased at avoiding the degrading process of going to election booths to decide for themselves.  

I can’t help but notice how young and virile your new leader is. At 33 years old he is just a bit older than Kim Jong Un; another person who successfully is maintaining a family dynasty. Not that I would ever suggest there is any comparison between the two.  

I will be posting this email on my blog if you want to have a look. The address is http://kevsclimatecolumn.blogspot.co.uk/. It would be nice if your new Emir could get chance to read it. However it is blocked in Qatar. Please pass the link on to him so that when he flies to the UK in his private jet he can read it.  I know that he will busy with his investments here, but it won’t take too much of his time.

I am sure that your censors must have made a mistake.  I only write on climate change, the military industrial complex, human rights, war and the linkages between them. I am sure that these are all topics dear to your new Sheikh’s heart. 

I know he must be interested in climate change as Qatar was proud to invite people from all over the world for last the climate change conference.  I do understand that under your chairmanship it disastrously delivered nothing and moved the world one step closer to cooking; still mistakes like this can happen to the best of us.  I also hope your new Emir is not too embarrassed by ruling a country with the world’s highest per capita carbon footprint when runaway climate change is killing thousands of people by the day.  Hopefully, the comfort of his private jets and luxury homes will stop him worrying too much.

I would also like to wish your new Sheikh good luck with all the new military hardware he is buying. I am sure it will keep him very happy. I also understand that some of your military big wigs are coming to our Fairford Air Tattoo this year to buy even more stuff. With a bit of luck I might be able to meet them to ask how their arms sales will protect your country and the world from climate change. I don’t quite understand how they will, but as your new Emir is so clever I am sure he can explain it. Good job that your country managed to derail climate change talks and you kept your oil and gas sales up, because without these you could never buy all this hardware.

Pass my congratulations to your new Emir on securing the World Cup and I hope your bid for the Olympics is successful. Qatar is a much better place for these events than Brazil as you don’t have to worry about impoverishing your people. They are all filthy rich and if they did complain you can always shoot them.  The people impoverished through the climate change these events help us ignore all live in poor or war torn countries, such as Syria, Lybia, Tunisa and Eygpt which have all suffered massive food price spikes. Wait a minute, isn’t that the Arab Spring countries whose revolutions Qatar did so much to support? Maybe I am making a silly mistake.

Anyway, enough of this. All I can say is good luck to your Emir’s continued abuse of human rights and conspicuous consumption. May he continue to buy lots of weapons to secure his hold on power and keep our most destructive corporations in power.

I am sure you must be delighted to be representing him,

Kevin Lister

Transcript of the Swindon Think Slam talk.

Text of my 3 min talk at the Swindon Think Slam:

I will walk you down the frightening path that humanity must travel together if it is to survive. 

Today we are standing on the edge of the abyss.

We face 2 existential threats, runway climate change and nuclear war.

These are the flip sides to the same coin, industrialisation.

150 years of industrialisation had caused atmospheric CO2 to exceed the safe limit to avoid runaway climate change. Today CO2 is increasing super exponentially.

Despite 18 rounds of international climate change talks with all the best intentions, they have led to 18 failures. To think the 19th will succeed is naivety.

Industrialisation has also brought the military industrial complex. There is a symbiotic relationship between the two. You cannot have a military industrial complex without a industrialisation and industrialising nations need a military industrial complex to secure resources.

The apex of this is the possession of nuclear weapons.

As our planet becomes more unstable due to the climate change caused by industrialisation governments around the world will seek and are seeking protection by nuclear weapons. This leaves the nuclear non proliferation treaty fit only for the bin.

This comes at a huge price. To build a credible nuclear threat a massive military industrial complex is needed and this must be funded by an exponentially expanding economy to raise the taxes.

A carbon intensive military industrial complex and expanding economy are the antithesis of what is needed to tackle climate change and resource depletion. Building these increases the risk they are trying to protect against. It is the ultimate death spiral.

We have no choice. If we want to tackle climate change we must put nuclear weapons on the climate change negotiating tables. This will cause the most profound changes in the history of humanity.

Only this will enable the deadlock in climate change and NPT talks to be broken. Doing this will not guarantee success in the fight against climate change, but failure to do so will guarantee failure.

Why do climate change talks fail

Why do climate change talks fail? If the eighteenth round of talks failed, can we expect the 19th to succeed?  Why are all nations collectively committing mutual suicide? Why are we ignoring the science of climate change? Why do we not care about our children? What can we do? What sequence of events must we demand to make progress? Is the concept of the nation state dead?

These fundamental questions are addressed in "The Vortex of Violence and why we are losing the war on climate change."

Kindle version available here

Hard copy available here



Preface 

Chapter 1 - No hope, false hope, some hope - the three witches of the apocalypse

Despite much talk that climate change means the existing business and economic system cannot be maintained, governments will do all in their power to maintain business as usual and use what ever mendacious means are necessary.

Chapter 2 - Dreams and realities

Atmospheric CO2 is building up super-exponentially. In about 10 years it will be above 450 ppm, at which point runaway climate change will be impossible to avoid. Our highly connected infrastructure is based around dangerous chemical and nuclear plants putting the planets risk exposure far in excess of anything the planet has seen in the past. 

Chapter 3 - Why climate change agreements are not working

The objective of international agreements on climate change is to limit CO2 emissions without any consideration of how this impacts the competitive environment that nations must survive within. It is a strategy doomed to failure.

Chapter 4 - What happens when nuclear weapons meet climate change?

There are three questions that nuclear weapon states should be forced to answer, (1) Will climate change make nuclear disarmament more difficult? (2) As economies collapse from climate change will nuclear weapon states be able to afford to maintain their weapons systems safe from attack and accident? (3) On the assumption that nuclear weapons are not used, will they become an eternal liability for the survivors struggling to make ends meet in the new hostile and dystopian environment that climate change will bring? No nation should progress nuclear weapons development until there has been public discussion and agreement on these questions.

Chapter 5 - Can democracy survive climate change?

Our understanding of democracy is that we should have freedom and be allowed to develop economically, but tackling climate change requires all of society to operate within strict limits imposed by a falling ecological ceiling. Nobody has any real option to vote for a party that will make sustaining civilisation its priority and determining how we should operate within fixed limits, instead all political parties merely offer different choices for preserving industrial growth. As a result, our ideals of human democracy have been replaced with the reality of an industrialised democracy.

Chapter 6 - Segmented problems or homogeneous solutions

We are conditioned from early childhood to be able to compartmentalise our thinking, and this forms the basis of the education systems in the industrial economices. It has the unintended consequence of encouraging us to find solutions to the three critical problems of today, climate change, nuclear disarmament and economic reform individually. If we continue to do this, the chance of success in any one is about 9E-63, about the same as selecting a single atom from all the atoms that make planet earth.

Chapter 7 - The War we are in and ecological overshoot

The nation state is essentially a war making entity, yet the nation state wars against the people of other nation states belong to the past, largely as a result of highly interconnected economies and the terror of nuclear conflict. Instead we have intractable  wars among the people virtually everywhere and these are differentiated only by the level of violence. These challenge the concept and viability of the nationstate, as the combatants of these wars fall into either pro-growth and anti-growth market states. Today the nation state is subservient to the pro-growth market states.

Chapter 8 - What happens next and what do we do about it?

Strategic choices are never easy to take. We must firstly integrate climate change, nuclear disarmement and financial reform. We must put nuclear weapons on the climate change negotiating table and this forces entire global political system to change. Key institutions such as the UN P-5 need to be replaced and a modern day alternative to the failed Baurch Agreement must be strived for. These will not guarantee success, but failure to do so will guarantee failure.

Chapters, completed book and research materials will also be published on www.nucli.biz

Submission to the independent aviation commission

The "Independent Aviation Commission" treads in the footsteps of the disbanded "public consultation on sustainable aviation" that led nowhere. The fact that aviation can never be sustainable might have something to do with it.

The independent aviation commission, like the public consultation before it, has asked for comments on equally stupid questions concerning the long term viability of aviation. The aviation commission like many other government departments, quangos or think-tanks totally ignores that climate change is already collapsing our economic model and things have hardly begun to get going yet. Today we are struggling with a 1 degC temp increase and are on track for the temperature to rise by 6 degC.

Like many others the Independent Aviation Commission assumes our economic model will last forever, simply because it has lasted fifty years so far.

Instead of having the courage to face reality and act on it, they want to pontificate on the fine tuning and accuracy of the demand forecast models provided by the aviation industry which guess how many passengers will go to holiday destinations in 2050 despite climate change science telling us those destinations will be either flooded or so hot that you will die if you venture outside.

It is hard to know what to say in the face of such institutionalised ignorance.

Our submission can be found here.