Extinction Rebellion

This is really worth a watch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeP8BGSINsw

^ The billions dead thing is highly unlikely given progress over the last 5-10 years and is based on an extreme worst-case scenario. There’s a useful explainer here: https://www.carbonbrief.org/explainer-the-high-emissions-rcp8-5-global-warming-scenario

This piece from the NS is interesting re XR strategy.
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/environment/2019/10/extinction-rebellion-may-enrage-commuters-it-doesnt-rely-majority

I personally disagree with the premise that nobody has been doing anything - quite a lot has been done, although much more is clearly needed. Obviously everyone has their own view on whether this is the best way to go about it.

It's going to be much easier to convince the remaining 1 billion.

There might be 3 billion. It’s fine.

It's still pretty vague with regards to how exactly this is going to work. They already have the support of a certain minority, so I assume they do still want to get more support. And then what? What does that 'large enough' minority do? They're all about being peaceful, so I'm supposing they're not talking about a revolt here, which basically leaves voting 'the right people' into power, right? Is that the avenue through which they want this to happen? I genuinely don't know.

This is completely disregarding a much more fundamental issue with their argument, which is basically repeating the 'homo oeconomicus' mistake, but on a much bigger level as they are applying it to the entire government: governments don't always make 'rational decisions', purely weighing up the costs. Actually, they rarely do. If they did, Cannabis would have been legalised a long time ago, and cycling would be the main way people get around. There's so many different factors influencing decisions, and that's before taking into account that there are plenty of people in government who are working to benefit themselves and their mates, and really don't care about how much it costs the country as a whole at all.

Overpromise, underdeliver?

I agree with your critique - I think a lot of this is perfomative and that their theory of ‘praxis’ is largely self-serving guff to justify making the scenes they want to make.

There’s a place for protest and I think that there’s space for some of their tactics - for example, when they shut down Oxford Street it was an amazing illustration of how we don’t actually need cars going up and down that road, and showed people that it could be a more pleasant environment than it normally is because of a big change. Sure, some people may have been pissed off by it, but I think most pedestrians on the street would have liked the change in the street dynamics - which is a great way to build consensus.

But identifying targets like that, where there’s scope to change minds through praxis, seems to be largely anathema to those involved in the latest round of actions - instead of trying to build consensus, they want to be so big a nuisance that it’s easier to pay to make them go away.

I think they’re vastly underestimating the costs the public will incur if the mood is against the movement, though. As you said, rationality can go out the window when it’s a point of principle. Just look at Brexit!

My impression is that XR fundamentally care less about being liked by the general public than changing high level policy. The argument is that individuals' changes to their lifestyles is insufficient to tackle the crisis, what is needed is systemic change. Years of non-disruptive promotion of lower-emission options have led to limited changes in behaviour (despite excellent breakthroughs in some areas) as people are generally inclined to do the thing that is least hassle. What is required is fundamental structural change to society and the policies that drive it to make it easier for people to do the right thing.

That's also why the "hypocrisy" argument (a la Piers Morgan) is such bullshit. Even if everyone involved in XR completely decarbonised their lifestyle it still wouldn't make a dent in the problem. The fact that they use an iPhone or order a McDonalds while campaigning is simply a reflection that it's very difficult to do the right thing in the system as it's currently set up. Changing the system (through being disruptive) is now much more important than individual lifestyle changes.

I think you’re likely correct in your description of what XR is trying to achieve. The thing is, politicians are swayed by the popular mood, and if they think it is an easy vote-winner to dismiss environmental concerns as the stuff of the hard left, then they may well do that - which is what we’ve seen way too much of over in the US. So I’m deeply uneasy with a strategy that could lead to that kind of polarisation - it seems to me that it runs the risk of hindering an all-party consensus on the severity of the issue, which is surely what we need?

I’m deeply uneasy with a strategy that could lead to that kind of polarisation - it seems to me that it runs the risk of hindering an all-party consensus on the severity of the issue, which is surely what we need?

Give the details of Demand 03 a read. In particular the why a Citizen’s Assembly... drop down.

https://rebellion.earth/the-truth/demands/

for example, when they shut down Oxford Street it was an amazing illustration of how we don’t actually need cars going

Well, you don't even need Extinction Rebellion for that--it's done at least once a year, for nakedly commercial reasons. Open streets for walking and cycling--more footfall and tyre roll. It does rather disrupt the day for people using buses, though--who are disproportionately poorer people, so not that interesting commercially, natch. The Extinction Rebellion actions will have had a similar effect on them.

If they did, Cannabis would have been legalised a long time ago, and cycling would be the main way people get around.

Yeah, but there'd be so many people riding around stoned.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/londonwide-ban-on-extinction-rebellion-protests-was-unlawful-and-abuse-of-power-high-court-hears-a4270106.html

I absolutely agree with every single thing you say there, especially the 'hypocrisy' thing. BUT:

My impression is that XR fundamentally care less about being liked by the general public than changing high level policy.

Yes but how is this going to actually work? To use a very old meme:

Isn't broad support in the population somewhat of an prerequisite to force politicians to do things that otherwise might not be in their own interests? Considering that, isn't "we're not here to be liked" more of an after-the-fact excuse for not getting the support they'd need to actually change things?

I'd view it as akin to non-violent terrorism. Whether it will work is obviously the debate.

Exec Summary from the IEA's Renewables 2019 report, out today.

Good FT write-up here, too: https://www.ft.com/content/7c36dd38-f69b-11e9-a79c-bc9acae3b654

Offshore wind power has the capacity to meet all of the world’s electricity demand, and is set to be a “game-changer” for energy systems, according to the International Energy Agency.

The Paris-based energy watchdog said that the falling costs of offshore wind would make it competitive with fossil energy within the next decade, forecasting that the global average cost of power generated by offshore wind would drop 40 per cent by 2030.

“It has the potential to be a major game-changer,” said Fatih Birol, executive director of the IEA. He compared it to the two significant power trends of the past decade: the advent of fracking in shale formations — which enabled cheap natural gas, and the explosive growth in solar.

“Looking at the future of offshore wind . . . it has the potential to join the ranks of shale [gas] and solar photovoltaics in terms of steep cost reductions,” said Mr Birol.

1 Attachment

Also this is rather cool.

I do think you're missing a bit of the point when banging on constantly about offshore wind and electricity - this is the easy bit!

The hard bit is working out you either de-carbonise things that don't use electricity, or work out how they might use electricity in the future.

Getting everyone off gas heating is going to be really difficult. Getting trucks, planes and ships to stop using diesel is going to be difficult. Making steel only using green electricity is going to be difficult.

Cars are supposed to be the easy bit - but we're still only looking at banning non hybrids in 2040!

I know you love offshore wind, but we've had the technology to make shed loads of carbon minimal electricity for decades (nuclear) so this really isn't the difficult part. It's everything else.

#rep

Electricity is one path to decarbonising heat - look at France, where a lot of space heating is electric rather than gas, thanks to their cheap nuclear generation. If we have an abundance of renewable electricity, we may be able to use it to replace some (not all) of our gas burn and (thanks to EVs) a substantial chunk of our motor fuel consumption

But yeah, sure - I’m well aware that electricity isn’t the solution to everything. I just think highlighting the fact that we’re making some valuable progress in some areas is important balance to the “we’re all going to die” hyperbole.

Cars are supposed to be the easy bit - but we're still only looking at banning non hybrids in 2040!

And actually, even those aren't that easy, because while electric cars are objectively better in some regards, they start off deeply in the red on the CO2 balance sheet thanks their own production emissions. It's really not that easy and straightforward, and as usual the actual solution is not "let's change everything a little bit to have the least amount of actual changes possible", it is "we need to fundamentally change some approaches - e.g. we need to have radically fewer cars to begin with, full stop".

^this. I think getting people to accept that car ownership is an obsolete relic of 20th C industrial Utopianism is one of the biggest challenges.