for: meme - make it expensive to destroy the planet, quote - Johan Rockstrom, quote - make it expensive to destroy the planet, key insight - make it expensive to destroy the planet

key insight

• we need to make the transition acceptable and attractive for the vast majority of citizens, and the only way to do that, is to make the changes easy to adopt. This requires strong engagement with society at large, and policies that make sustainable life choices not only easier, but also cheaper and more attractive. Or, put it the other way around, it must be more expensive to destroy the planet or the health of our fellow citizens".

for: quote - Johan Rockstrom, quote - positive tipping points, quote - social tipping points, social tipping points, stop, positive tipping points

quote: Johan Rockstrom

• We need to trigger exponential change across sectors and geographies by phasing out fossil fuels while taking advantage of positive social and economic tipping points.

for: quote - Johan Rockstrom, quote - uncertainty at 1.5 Deg C for years

quote: Johan Rockstrom

• now we are facing a high risk of overshooting 1.5°C - at best - for several decades. Currently, we must admit that we do not know what the consequences are of such an overshoot, i.e., we do not know how long time the big tipping point systems - like the Gulf Stream or the Coral Reef systems, can cope with high risk temperatures above 1.5°C.

for: climate mitigation, stats - 40% reduction by 2030, quote - Johan Rockstrom, quote - fossil fuel phase out

quote: Johan Rockstrom

• All stakeholders in the world must now act according to the agreed Cop28 output, and deliver on the CopP28 Global Stocktake Agreement,
  • which means rapidly transitioning away from oil, coal and gas, aiming at more than 40% reductions by 2030

for: quote, quote - Johan Rockstrom, quote - Johan Rockstrom - Industry greenwashing

quote

• It is a major mistake in the current climate action debates,
  • when big actors with interests in the oil, gas, and coal industry,
• use investments in
• nature based solutions or
• technologies for carbon dioxide removal (CDR),
• as “offsets” for the inability to phase out fossil-fuels.
• This will not work. Science is clear on this point
• We need to
• phase out fossil-fuels AND
  • restore nature to secure carbon sinks in soils and forests, AND
  • to invest in CDR technologies.
• Additionality is the word of the day, not substitution.

for: quote, quote - Johan Rockstrom, quote greenwashing

quote

• We cannot continue with double standards on fossil-fuels and renewable energy,
• or as a majority of countries are doing today –
  • continue to sit on the fence, with green rhetoric but grey actions,
• which adds to the perception of widespread greenwashing.

for: quote, quote - Kevin Anderson, quote - Kevin Anderson - Marshall plan, discussion - Johan Rockstrom / Kevin Anderson, perspectival knowing

quote

• Our choice to fail over the last 30 years has brought us to this position.
• And a way out of that, a way out of the Marshall Plan, is to say we can have these negative emissions
• I think we need to say that, okay that's one way out of it – if they work.
• Another way out of it is the Marshall Plan.
• And so we need to open that that dialogue up. but we've... in effect, I think the IAMs have closed that dialogue,.
• Which is one of the reasons, going back to... It would be interesting to see other parts of the world looking at this, because, I would have a guess,
  • when we say 'that's not feasible', many people elsewhere in the world are saying 'well of course it's feasible, we've been doing... we've been living like that for years!'

comment

• In rebuttal to Johan's perspective on Negative Emissions Technologies (NETs),
  • Kevin is addressing the issue of perspectival knowing, and
  • its implications on what solutions we entertain as a global society.
• The example he cites is Negative Emissions Technologies (NETs) illustrates two major perspectives:
  • Johan includes NETs as he see's that without them, the transition goes from manageable to unmanageable
  • Kevin questions the inclusion of the NETs as potentially shutting down discussion about what Johan would consider an unmanageable situation
• Kevin brings up a valid point for inclusion of other voices, especially those indigenous ones who are still institutionally marginalized not only in economic and cultural spaces, but also academic and intellectual ones.
• The decolonization of academia takes on a concrete form here. Both the global and local south have lived under severe economic repression for centuries. Anderson's contention is that making do with less is something that billions of people have had to contend with for centuries as a social norm forced upon them by colonialist then post colonialist institutions.
• Inclusivity of a greater diversity of voices does play an important role in shaping the future direction of humanity.
• We should be having an open discussion about a Marshall plan and should not be afraid to go there.
  • We had it in WWII, which, while more direct threat, is not as great as the threat of climate change on all life on earth in a slightly greater time scale.
• The global and local south has a lot to teach the global and local north. For this great transition of humanity to occur likely simultaneously requires
  • radical amounts of resource transfer from the global / local north to the global / local south,and
  • radical degrowth

for: quote, quote - Johan Rockstrom, quote - Johan Rockstrom - NET

stats

• We're increasing emissions today between 1 and 2% per year.
• Now, to reduce emissions even in the global model runs we have, with optimistic I mean, overly optimistic negative emission technologies – assume mitigation pathways, as you know, between 5 and 7% per year.
• So that is three times revolution pace, at the current modeling runs.
• If you take away negative emission technologies, you would exceed 10% very rapidly.
• You would be more the 10 to 15%.
• I would call that... That's not revolution, that is a complete disruption of the global economy.
• It's like a pace that is beyond... I mean then you need to bulldoze down coal-fired plants, basically.
• You would be in a complete global Marshall Plan. It's a war zone agenda.

• In a normal distribution,
  • from over here you have the denialists and
  • over here you have the environmental activists.
• But in between you have a lot of different types of people.
• And the majority are actually
  • we know this from opinion polls
• very supportive of science.
• They're very supportive of and concerned about climate change.
• They want climate action.
• It's just that they live their normal lives, they have many preoccupations in life.They have
  • children,
  • health,
  • school,
  • financing,
  • incomes.
• You know, many, many things to be worried about.
• But that's the question:
  • how do we get this majority, the silent majority, to join us?
• I don't think that the way to make them join us is to
  • scare them and
  • fight with the denialists.
• I think the way to make them join is to show that this pathway can get a better life.

date: Sept., 2023

comment

• in other words
• the silent majority does not yet hold climate change activism to be sufficiently high on their list of priorities yet to warrant the necessary scale of action

for: Johan Rockstrom - top down strategy, quote, quote - Johan Rockstrom, quote - climate top down strategy

quote

• we have a crisis and things have to change at the global level so fast that we need to correct big system failures at a very large scale. And I'm convinced that that can only be done top-down not bottom-up.

• reaching zero by 2050 won't take us there