COP-30: the Latest Failure

The latest post on Caitlin’s Newsletter is titled: “Nobody’s Coming to Humanity’s Rescue: We’ve Got to Save Ourselves”

Thank you, Caitlin Johnstone and Tim Foley! Yes, we must save ourselves, without help even from governments. Remember what governments are for, as was brilliantly expressed years ago by the Lord Mayor of London: “It is the Duty of the Lord Mayor of London to open doors for business at all levels.”

These “COP” meetings keep proceeding because we-the-people keep pushing on governments to solve the climate crisis “for us.” That meaning we push that responsibility onto them, so it’s out of our hands, AND we then do not have to change anything in OUR lives. But cutting emissions means that we-the-people MUST find a simpler life, and RESIST government’s continuous attempts to put more and more stress on people’s lives.

The big problem with fossil fuels, a predicament actually, is that this huge human population WAS ENABLED by use of fossil fuels - energy slaves, actually - and to reduce fossil fuel use REQUIRES reduction of either or both population numbers and consumption volume.

People often blame the oil companies, as if it’s a supply-side issue. NO! It is YOUR hand on the pump - it is a DEMAND-SIDE issue. You stop buying fuels and they will stop selling them.

The first steps toward finding a simpler life, is to set definite limits to progress. Let things be! We DO NOT NEED AI in any form. We do not need the burden on our electric grids from its data centers. We do not need Space adventurism, Moon bases, flights to Mars, none of that stuff is necessary and it further depletes this planet - valuable and complex materials are literally shot out into Space. WE DO NOT need so many auto manufacturers, each with multiple models and no interchangeability of parts, not even for wheels and tires. Think of what you can simplify in the material world instead of dreaming up the next new gadget. Expand your mind through education and music.

Remember that the #1 driver of the economy is the relief of human boredom. Think about it - all your vacations, tourism, sports events, major sports, Olympics, World Cups, sports betting, personal sports, holiday celebrations, golfing, your silly “bucket list,” going home for Christmas - it’s all about relieving YOUR boredom. And it all carries an unnecessary emissions burden.

But here’s a catch: If you’re sitting there trying to write policy for other people in other places and cultures, that is actually a part of Exceptionalism and I think this world has had enough of that already!

Perhaps the worst driver of emissions in all of history is wars and arming up for wars and dreaming up the next strategic threat, rather than developing peace and working towards betterment of society world-wide and finding ways to live in harmony with Nature rather than extracting every last “resource” and expediting its transition into trash (economic throughput).

But these two aspects - you sitting there writing policy for the whole world AND the continuous arming up for more war, illustrate the dire need for actual world governance - there is absolutely no management of this large human population by any conceivable metric. Goal #1 must be effective world (human) government, and until that becomes effective all your environmental and any other musings are no more than spitting into the wind.

Another grievous concept brought up at COP-30 was yet another attempt at financializing Nature:

“A novel bond fund that bets rain forests are worth more live than dead” by Eric Reguly, Globe and Mail, Nov. 12, p. B1, and my reply:

The application of financialization to Nature must be proscribed at all costs. Financial markets grasp any natural property asset available and spin it up into higher and higher levels of derivatives until any link to an underlying property has been subsumed in layers of debt obligations. And the author ends saying: “In the absence of anything more clever, it is worth giving “TFFF” a shot.” I think oxygen pricing, which I have been advocating for over 13 years, is sufficiently “clever.” Instead of the previous carbon pricing which puts an artificial additional price on your carbon fuels and refunds that back to the consumers to achieve buy-in, oxygen pricing puts a price on the oxygen you steal from the commons to oxidize the fuels you burn, and hands these funds to an entity such as U.N. Green Fund, which can then directly pay other nations to produce more oxygen, i.e., keeping their forests intact, without financial monkey-business.

Of course this letter wasn’t printed in The Globe, the MSM doesn’t want anyone learning about other options to “carbon pricing.”