While walking at the Waterfront and enjoying the sunset I was thinking about the Glasgow COP26 climate conference, budgeting, and the horizon.
Actually, there are three horizons in budgeting plus the environmental one before me as the sun disappeared behind the far shoreline. Okay, make it five horizons because it was the fifth one – the political horizon – which was the one giving me indigestion; hence the walk at the waterfront to bring up the burps.
No, the methane comes later.
Is Dougie actually courting the anti-vaxxer vote by jeopardizing our health care system?
Only the heartiest of us wants to know what was the size of the carbon footprint of this UN Climate Conference. Not only in the carbon-fueled transportation used to get to Glasgow and then back home, but in the disruption of the food and services to Glaswegians as the attendees ate, drank, slept, and paraded with EMS and media personnel close at hand.
Russia and China did not send their top brass even though they are among the top five polluting nations on the planet. The end result of the conference will be goals set somewhere on the horizon of time measured not in years but in degrees Celsius.
Our fanciful Prime Minister set some goals, not only for the world but on behalf of we Canadians, who it should be remembered are a mere drop in the bucket of some 40 million souls in a world of more than eight billion people. Fortunately for us, the honourable PM set us on a horizon plan. This is a strategy he (and other politicians) uses to promise something in the far future when they may or will be out of office and thus cannot be held accountable. I am thinking of clean drinking water and affordable housing, but let us stick with the environment.
Cutting back and finally eliminating coal burning for heat, industry, and producing electricity seems like an easy first step in reducing carbon emissions, which may be possible for we Canucks but not so much for others who depend on coal and coke to keep the wheels of industry turning. We just stop shipping coal to Japan and China and find other jobs for those who dig and ship the fossil fuel. (China, India, and the USA did not sign onto the coal cutbacks plan). I promise not to burn any more coal or wood, however, I still need some natural gas to heat my house and maybe a little propane for my barbie.
Fossil fuel for our cars and trucks seems like another piece of the low-hanging carbon fruit.
It appears that the auto manufacturers have taken the 3 Horizons of budgeting and applied it to their move from fossil fuel-powered vehicles to electric: the first horizon (3-5 years) was to move to hybrid systems; the second horizon (5-10 years) to begin phasing out fossil fuels and move to offer pure electric (I am still shuddering at the thought of that silent electric Mustang), and the third horizon (+10 years) was to go 100 per cent electric vehicles. Justin says he and we can do it by 2035, a date that is just over the horizon. Neither my Hyundai nor I will last that long so we are doing our part for 2035.
However, I am wondering what horizon(s) and methods they have chosen for the recycling or disposal of those EV batteries and electronics. We have not yet solved the used uranium problem. Will we have a similar problem with the batteries? Currently, there are (expensive) methods to recover the lithium, nickel and cobalt in these batteries but reusing them in our houses for backup electricity (AC/DC converters?) seems like another possibility – with a final disposal horizon that the homeowner (not the manufacturer) will face.
If the previous 25 COP conferences (including Kyoto, Paris) showed us anything, it is that convincing businesses and governments, not to mention individuals, about climate change and pollution is a far horizon. It is like Christopher’s sailors who looked to the horizon for any sign of land as they crossed the Atlantic. No matter how many days they sailed into the sunsets, that land was just beyond the horizon. Mind you, some of those sailors were Flat Earthers and did not sleep well at night; they liked the idea of endless horizons.
The 3 Horizons in politics can be seen in our area politics.
Given that the four-year term is commonplace in Canada, our politicians at all three levels use the 3 Horizons plan: In year one (Horizon 1) of their mandate, they do the easy routine things and fulfill the no-brainer promises; Horizon 2 begins in year two when they raise taxes and ends in year three where they start preparing their platform for re-election; Horizon 3 is where they place promised projects that they really do not want to deal with – leaving them for the next term and whoever has the wherewithal to put the item within the next term of office. The 3 Horizons method falls apart when projects get shifted to Horizon 3, term after term. Sort of like the Cassellholme upgrade which has been just over the horizon for close to 10 years.
The end result of COP26 will be that you and I have to solve this climate/pollution problem. My 3 Horizon plan is simple: Horizon 1 – I’ll be more diligent in checking the source of things I purchase by looking at the carbon footprint – how did the product get to me from faraway countries? How big was my footprint in getting to and from the store? How many times did I ‘shop’ in the past 10 days?
In years 2 and 3 I will move to Horizon 2 - Does the packaging around my purchase cause more pollution than the item itself? Start leaving the extra packaging, especially the plastics, at the store or buy unpackaged goods. Eventually, our better choices will filter up to the manufacturers and producers and maybe even our governments. In years 3 to 5, I will work on reducing the energy to run my house, electronics, etc.
The final Horizon in my plan will be to consider buying solar panels and an EV auto and maybe even an electric motorcycle but only if the technology will afford me the same convenience and pleasures of my current fossil fuel burners. In my case, Horizon 3, 10 years hence, will likely have me in a carbon-neutral footprint wheelchair roaming the halls of the nearly finished Cassellholme. Oh well.
As I tiresomely reiterate, the core problem with climate change, starvation, species extinction, and pollution is human over-population. I wonder if that topic even got on the agenda at COP26.
