----- Original Message -----From: [log in to unmask] href="mailto:[log in to unmask]">Alastair McIntoshTo: [log in to unmask] href="mailto:[log in to unmask]">[log in to unmask]Sent: Wednesday, June 24, 2009 9:54 PMSubject: Today's Unanimous Passing of the Climate Change (Scotland) BillFolks - here are key links to the Scottish Parliament's bill that was passed today committing to carbon cuts consistent with scientific advice rather than political expediency.1. Reuters - 2 hours agoż - Scotland agrees world's toughest 2020 climate goal - http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE55N3ZV200906242. The Guardian - 4 hours ago - Scottish parliament agrees tougher 42% target to cut emissions - http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jun/24/scotland-climate-change-bill3. Link to the Bill as passed today: http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/s3/bills/17-ClimateChange/index.htm4. Link to the Scottish Climate Change Delivery Plan http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Environment/climatechangeAt an aspirational level, the Bill is a great achievement, but I do have serious reservations about what has been achieved. Here are some quickly jotted down thoughts for what has been achieved is phenomenal, and yet, we need to tread cautiously in my view.1. Do we really think these targets are politically achievable? They would entail real challenges to people's whole way of life - as the Delivery Plan seems to recognise, in pointing towards the "almost complete de-carbonisation" of transport and generating capacity that is called for by 2030. That's in 20 years time, yet 20 years ago, in the run-up to the Rio Summit, we were all saying the same thing, and what happened is now history as recorded at Muana Loa (currently 386 ppm, up from 355 20 years ago). Nobody who I have spoken to who is both scientifically and politically well-informed thinks that the scale of cuts required is politically realistic, even though the science suggests it is what must be aimed for, and every bit that can be achieved helps to slow down what the models, if they are correct, forewarn. The Guardian article confirms my observation that even key international campaigners privately doubt that what needs to happen could happen in our hedonistic democracies. And so, what will be the fallout for campaigning if/when the targets are not met? Will it be positive fallout, highlighting the gap between aspiration and reality and spurring on to further all-round effort? Or will it fuel cynicism about green spin? These are important questions in terms of how we, as activists, play the field from here - questions of integrity in an age of spin vis-a-vis the expectations and understanding of our constituencies of influence.2. The Bill is only aspirational - the only sanction if targets are not met will be embarrassment. As the Bill says for various targets, for example, the 2020 target of 42% cuts: "If the interim target has not been met, the report must explain why" (Section 32:3). Of course, it is clear why Government cannot go further than that. A Government can hardly self-punish. Yet it does risk setting this Bill up as a Cassandra Bill - one that warns of the dangers, but goes relatively unheeded.3. It is not surprising that the Bill was able to command political unanimity. The green vote, which provided the balance of power when the current Scottish Government was elected, is pivotal to the potential political futures of all major parties under Scotland's proportional representation system. Because green principles intersect with the interests of all main political parties in Scotland, the environment has considerable sway over where the political centre of gravity settles. All parties therefore need to appear to be green - and to do so not just to fend off the Greens but to gain, for themselves, a green aura. However, the degree to which the Bill is constructed to have achieved such all-round palatability is evident. For example, Schedule 1:4, which lays out the remit for the Scottish Committee on Climate Change (to oversee implementation), gives as first (and foremost?) in its list of areas of expertise to be sought amongst members - "Business competitiveness"! I ask you! The very thing that, arguably, most drives unsustainable behaviour! Also listed in qualities sought are climate science, financial investment and economic forecasting. There is nothing about expertise in, say, energy obviation, or the psychology of reducing consumption (on that point, note WWF's Strategies for Change reports, including Tom Crompton's and Tim Kasser's latest that came out today). Although the ancillary Delivery Plan (link 4 above) does go into energy obviation, it only tilts in passing at consumerism in Section 1:13 where it urges the need to, "Reduce consumption, particularly of products which emit greenhouse gases as part of their manufacture, e.g. cement; production, e.g. meat; or decomposition, e.g. waste." As with nearly all Government-associated climate change strategies (apart from the UK SD Commission's recent outstanding "Prosperity Without Growth?" report), the metanarrative in the Scottish Bill is "Cut carbon provided it doesn't cut economic growth."4. And lastly, my bottom line reservation is the paradox that the more we focus on outer actions, including target-setting, the more we risk engaging in displacement activity unless we also attend to the inner psychological and spiritual dynamics of addiction to consumerism and what sustains it at socio-political corporate levels. Climate change is the product of population and consumption. Our biggest target needs to be consumerism, which I define as consumption in excess of what is needed for dignified sufficiency. We're all complicit - at least, I am - and we need both the outer and the inner, both the individual and the collective action, if there is to be hope for change, or at least, in a worst case scenario, facing with dignity the come-what-may of the come-to-pass so that we are better positioned to mitigate consequences and avert potential barbarity ... if the consensus scientific models are right.Alastair.
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* Hell and High Water: Climate Change, Hope and the Human Condition, now
* published by Birlinn, £8.99 - www.alastairmcintosh.com/hellandhighwater.htm
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* Soil and Soul: People versus Corporate Power is now in paperback and
* in French translation - www.AlastairMcIntosh.com/soilandsoul.htm** Love and Revolution, collected poetry, is from Luath Press** Rekindling Community: Connecting People, Environment and Spirituality* is Schumacher Briefing No. 15 from Green Books,* www.alastairmcintosh.com/rekindlingcommunity.htm
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