A few months ago I started a new Serious Change project. The aim of the project was to write good responses to online newspaper and blog posts about the UK energy system.
Well, after a few months of online meetings, and posting comments, we got pretty good at responding. We even started to see common arguments for not investing public funds in our energy system. So, the obvious thing to do is to list these common arguments and write our best reponses (google doc). Anyone who would like to help write reponses is most welcome to write on that google doc — and if you would like to discuss any aspect of this project then just email lisa at seriouschange dot org dot uk.
The good thing about this exercise is that the next time we come across one of these common arguments, we can save ourselves some work and just refer to our reponse here — and so can you!
Please also tell your friends, colleagues, family. It should be a fun evening! We’re probably going to go for a drink afterwards as well (carrying a box of magnetic foam and
6 steel whiteboards).
So you think you’re green, eh? But I bet you still fly. One return flight to Australia pretty much means that you shouldn’t breathe for the next 2 years, let alone burn any fuel!Ok, so you’re like me, you don’t fly, but you’d really like to. You don’t mind things taking a bit longer, which is why you will still get on the train to go to (fairly) interesting places and take a day rather than 2 hours (ok normally more like 6 hours once you take into account the trip to the airport, the checking in time, the flight, waiting for your luggage at the far end, and the trip from some airport in the middle of nowhere with sheep grazing on the runway). But! You don’t get to go to New York for a surprise trip for your wedding anniversary or a trip somewhere the other side of the world for some winter sun.
So, you have either given flying up or you probably should. There is an element of sacrifice involved. And what hurts most, no one else seems to be giving it up. The UK seems determined to expand its air traffic business [1]. It’s not inconceivable that people could lose their jobs if they refused to fly when it was deemed necessary. Flying is now part of our way of life, and we’ll only stop flying with the collapse of society.
Let’s just accept this reality and consider how to make the best of an unfortunate situation.
Well, obviously, people could fly less. That is a nice easy glib thing to say. More realistically though, they could fly more efficiently [2]. There are many ways that this can be achieved. Better engines. Higher density of passengers on the planes. Slower. Not planes.
But I just said flying is here to stay!
Well, yes it is. And it is inevitable that it will be. You just need less infrastructure to set up a journey. However there are some wacky ideas that shouldn’t just be ignored. How about a fast train from London to New York
No, I mean faster than a plane. A LOT faster. Yes, even than Concorde (RIP). 4000 mph fast enough for you. Should only cost about $175 billion plus running costs [3].
However, that is still a bit of a red herring, I was talking about airships. Now bear with me a moment. It isn’t what you are thinking. Airships don’t blow up. They almost never did even when people were a bit careless in their construction. They are slow, but slow means up to 200mph. That’s less than a day from London to New York (as the crow flies, and I admit being somewhat naive about trade winds). I’d lose a day of holiday to fly across the Atlantic guilt-free!
You could make getting places part of the experience too. There is talk of airships with tennis courts on board! Seriously, who wouldn’t want to fly in something called a Mega-Airship![4]
A few months ago, our friend, Francis Davey gave a speech where he explained the aim of Serious Change is to:
“Change the hearts and minds of people by telling the story of zero carbon Britain and show that this is desirable and getting there will be satisfying.”
Changing hearts and minds means you have to understand people’s values and what they care about.
So let us consider people who care about their family, their home, their job and their bills. They reasonably don’t want disruption to their life unless it is really worth it, for the good of their family, their home, their job or their bills.
Concerns about the science and morality of the climate changing or the technology of alternatives to fossil fuel are, at best, secondary, as these issues are not as clear or immediate as family, home, job and bills.
Well the Daily Mail, and the Tax Payer’s Alliance (TPA) are already talking to these people. They are telling a story of a government that is, without agreement, and therefore undemocratically, taking money from British families to invest in Green technology.
Here is one story from the TPA:
“14% of the average domestic electricity bill is the result of ineffective Government climate change policies that provide massive subsidies to the owners of wind farms but do little to reduce emissions”.
“Tough new targets on tackling climate change will cost every household in Britain at least £600 a year, push more than a million people into poverty and send fuel bills soaring, experts warned today.”
But the TPA and Daily Mail stories aren’t being told fairly.
People are not told how much of their money is going to oil and gas suppliers in tax breaks and subsidies. They are not told how much extra they are paying in tax or heating and car related bills because of these subsidies and tax breaks. The government support to oil and gas companies is a complex set of data to unpick, but with freedom of information requests and thoughtful investigation, it can be done.
It seems to me that telling this story is the right thing to do, regardless of any environmental concerns. But as I am interested in a fair analysis of the details of changing Britain’s energy system, it is also the first step in that investigation.
You can listen to the full Francis Davey speech here:
This radio program gives some insight into how Obama catered the ‘green’ part
of his election campaign to different levels of environmental skepticism. For example he emphasised the gains to the car industry and being competitive with Japan and China in the ‘automobile state’ of Michigan . http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00jrpvs/b00jrpsq/Costing_the_Earth_Obamas_Green_Dream/
The strategy of trying to scare people about the future catastrophe of global warming doesn’t work because it is an abstract notion of what might happen in the future.
We need to show people there are many positive innovations that will reduce the risk of climate change.
With innovations we need to talk about opportunity not risk, benefit not just costs.
He sees the difference between himself and the Green party as he has more interest in the sharp edged technological innovations than the protection of nature.
He expresses the opinion that nuclear is the technology that can scale in the short term.
We need incentives rather than taxes.
He says that Obama is an inspiration, as he sees the new economy converges with climate change investment.
Energy markets should be under some government control as markets won’t do the job on their own.
He wants to see a group of business leaders who publicly put forward the idea that it should be only those companies that are ‘environmentally progressive’ that will be competitive in the future. And they will lead by example.
He puts forward the idea that we need a wider set of measures of growth/welfare for the future, as he believes that the economic growth measures we have do not reflect the total sum of human welfare.
I want electric cars to make it cheap to drive and air source heat pumps to make it cheap to keep our homes warm.
I want the deserts to be full of energy gathering mirrors, and the hills and oceans covered with wind turbines.
I want campaign groups to be less like Plane Stupid, alienating people by shutting down airports, and more like the Conservative party, campaigning for high speed rail links.
A few months ago, our friend, Francis Davey gave a speech where he explained the aim of Serious Change is to:
or a new world?