We should stop whining about climate change

 The transition will come whether we like it or not, but if we act now, we can more easily influence what a future sustainable society can look like. It won't give us as many gadgets but can still offer a safe and more meaningful life.

 Climate change is often discussed as a technology issue. It is about replacing fossil cars with electric cars, coal with wind power and making plastics from biomass, just to take a few examples.

 But these discussions miss what the transition leads to in the long run. The use of fossil fuels has meant changes in virtually all areas of society, from where we live to how we produce. Globalization, capitalism, motoring, housing, education, the pension systems, even the way we see ourselves as humans in relation to the rest of the biosphere are largely the result of the transformation of society with coal and oil.

 It is clear that we can produce fossil-free fertilizers, electric cars and fossil-free steel. The electric car is more than a hundred years old, and the first commercial production of fertilizer at the beginning of the twentieth century was fossil-free.

 Before Swedish steel became dependent on imported fossil coal, it was produced with fossil-free charcoal.

 It is also quite clear that there are a number of disadvantages with all the technologies that are supposed to replace the fossil ones. Even hydropower has major disadvantages. Protests against hydropower were the first major environmental protest in Sweden. It is a good thing that these disadvantages are highlighted and discussed, but not as an argument for the continued use of fossil fuels.

 Even without the climate damage, the fossil fuel economy is doomed because the costs of extraction only increase as more and more difficult-to-access sources are used. Instead, we must ask ourselves how much energy society should consume, for what and why.

 In addition to the direct disadvantages of various types of renewable energy, there is hardly any discussion at all of how the transition will change society at large.

 Only now are people starting to discuss the imbalance and weaknesses in the Swedish electricity system. Irregularities and unreliability of the electricity system are a big problem for businesses, in addition to all the inconveniences (like thawed freezers) they cause to people in general.

 This can be seen in California where both households and businesses invest heavily in backup systems, usually diesel-powered generators. In turn, this reduces the scope for investment in the power grids, making them even more vulnerable to disruptions.

 Fossil-free fertilizer will be 2-3 times more expensive than the fossil one. How farming is done and the relative prices of different agricultural products will then change. It will also lead to reduced specialization in agriculture and reduced global trade in food products. These, in turn, will lead to significantly greater price increases than the actual cost of the fossil-free fertilizer.

 Sustaining the food supply will require recirculation of nutrients from city to country, with rebuilt sewage systems. Megacities of 20 million people will most likely need to reduce their population.

 These two examples together with greatly increased costs for transport give a foretaste of the cascading effects that will affect society if we take climate change seriously. These effects will inevitably lead to greatly reduced consumption and non-existent economic growth.

 As long as the economy has been able to grow, better living conditions and more toys have kept people (relatively) happy. Instead of bluffing people about green growth, we need to start a fundamental transformation to a society with a much smaller ecological footprint. 

Todde 

Also check: https://axiom1b.blogspot.com/2021/02/populationgrowth-needs-to-be-slowed.html