"Last chance to change our behaviour"

I found an interesting article yesterday by David Hillyard of Earthwatch Institute which can be seen here, along with a comment from me (among many). Much of his article was about our failure so far to shift from the path of environmental destruction and how the pursuit of economic growth seems to trump sustainability. I supported him on this and in fact both our posts were mainly cries from the heart for us to mend our ways.

His closing comment is "In a world driven by a market economy, business has vital role to play in moving to this new future and can step up and play a leadership role in creating a sustainable future."

My own final sentences were rather non-committal:- "Our economic infrastructure - our companies, capital markets, company law, taxation etc - were designed for an age when the case for economic growth was much stronger. It will be very interesting to see whether leadership towards true sustainability emerges from within the economic infrastructure itself, as David Hillyard suggests it might."

Here is my post in full (edited very slightly):-

"My own reading of the science and economics of climate change, and of other environmental issues, strongly suggests that material living standards in the developed world must fall if the environmental threats are to be effectively confronted. I think we have strong grounds to hope that we can nevertheless enhance our health and happiness.

"The recession we may soon emerge from was unplanned. What we now need is a planned long-term recession that reconciles enhanced health and happiness with falling material living standards. We will obviously need to confront difficult questions such how to pay for health care, honour pension commitments and give people opportunities for purposeful activity in the context of a possibly shrinking formal economy.

"The Government and most of the political class clearly don't see it this way. Political leadership towards a truly sustainable economy is conspicuously lacking. In the media, contributions such as this by David Hillyard still seem to belong in the fringe of public discourse. The desirability of economic growth is treated as a truth universally recognised.

"Our economic infrastructure - our companies, capital markets, company law, taxation etc - were designed for an age when the case for economic growth was much stronger. It will be very interesting to see whether leadership towards true sustainability emerges from within the economic infrastructure itself, as David Hillyard suggests it might."

The 10:10 pledge

Last Tuesday (1st September) I went to Tate Modern and signed up to the 10:10 pledge - ie to reduce my greenhouse gas emissions by 10% in 2010, and collected a little pendant recycled from an old Boeing 747 to prove it.

The 10:10 campaign is organised by Franny Armstrong, of Age of Stupid fame. I think it's a brilliant idea as it brings home the need to make substantial cuts in emissions in the near future and not be lulled into thinking we can go at a leisurely pace towards an 80% reduction by 2050.

Signing up was a rash move for me. My domestic energy consumption is already down to 31% of the national average for 2008 (see my last post) and I don't really have much of a clue about how I can get it down to 28%. For a start, I'll be more precise in the way I fill my electric kettle and I'll try and keep better track of the minutes I spend under a hot shower every morning.

Outside the home I'm always looking at ways I waste energy, such as by pressing the button at a pedestrian crossing. I reckon stopping a car weighing 1 tonne and travelling at 30 mph (about 48 kph) wastes about 25 watt-hours of usable energy (and a lot more unusable energy because of the inefficiency of a petrol or diesel engine), enough to keep an 18W energy-saving lightbulb (100W incandescent equivalent) alight for about an hour and twenty minutes. It's also enough to bring water to the boil to make one cup of tea (a quarter of a litre).

If I stop a 40-tonne articulated lorry (or 40 1-tonne cars), then the usable energy wasted is about 1 kilowatt-hour - nearly one seventh of my daily domestic energy consumption.

The trouble is, I've been alive to all this for a number of years and I already try not to stop traffic at pedestrian crossings so I don't think extra care here will get me far towards my 10% target.

Incidentally, I thought The Guardian did the campaign proud - http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/10-10