The washingqueen comes at this whole experiment from a different (and welcome) perspective. It's clear, even at this early stage, that there is plenty of potential for us to hold quite different views on just how and how far to reduce our consumption. In some ways I'm sure this reflects the polarities that exist in many families, communities and even amongst nation states when they discuss how real and serious the threat of global warming is, how far we need to go to tackle it, how far we are willing to go, what exactly we should do and when we should do it.
In a household like ours, with three young children, there's no denying the washing needs to be done, meals need cooking, people need to keep warm and the car is a very practical and convenient way to get around. So I think I understand washingqueen's concerns about taking the whole thing too far. But we've not started yet and for the moment I think we need to feel our way with small steps, so she need not worry about an imminent return to handwashing, a ban on tumble drying or the prohibition of hot meals.
But I'm not one for just tinkering at the edges. If we are to commit to carbon rationing, and in a way that requires us to reduce our emissions month on month, then sooner or later, once the low hanging fruit has been harvested, we may have to look at more radical measures.
Advocates for compulsory personal carbon rationing argue it's the only fair way to get people to take responsibility for their own emissions and the only viable way to get the majority of people to actually take action to reduce their personal energy consumption. Hands have to be forced. And I see their point. I mean we're educated people and we think of ourselves as quite green and environmentally aware. We recycle our cans, papers and bottles; we try to limit our car usage and use public transport where we can; we ride bikes, walk to school, turn off lights and wear clothes twice (well I do anyway), but even given all that, it's a shock to find our carbon emissions are above average. If CO2 emissions were visible, our house would be sitting under an embarrassingly large purple cloud while our car would disappear in haze of purple pollution.
The proponents of carbon rationing argue there's only one global solution to emissions that stands the slightest chance of global acceptance, and that's one based upon principles of equity, that everyone has the same right to emit. The argument goes that over time, we need to establish a world order in which all citizens of the planet have the same entitlement to emit carbon, and all nations will have the right to make emissions on the basis of their population. And all in a system in which the level of emissions is scientifically determined to be low enough to head off the prospect of catastrophic climate change. And all this needs to be done like now. Pronto. Like yesterday is not too soon to begin.
The proposed path to emissions equanimity? Contraction and convergence. Best look it up as I'm not sure I can explain it yet. In the washingqueen's terms it means decades of Weightwatchers for us in the West while the developing world can carry on eating cakes and biscuits.
As far as I can make out, practically speaking here in the UK, carbon rationing would mean we'd need to reduce our personal emissions year on year from an average purple megacloud of 10.4tCO2 in 2005 to a small purple hotair balloon of 2.1tCO2 by 2050. That's an 80% reduction in 45 years. So with that in mind I'm going to go away and see if I can calculate what that would mean we'd need to achieve month on month, year on year. I feel the need for CarbonWatchers coming on strong.
No comments:
Post a Comment