Darkness at Noon

Quick hat tip to this Monbiot piece:

A paper published yesterday in the journal Environment and Urbanization shows that the places where population has been growing fastest are those in which carbon dioxide has been growing most slowly, and vice versa. Between 1980 and 2005, for example, Sub-Saharan Africa produced 18.5% of the world’s population growth and just 2.4% of the growth in CO2. North America turned out 4% of the extra people, but 14% of the extra emissions. Sixty-three per cent of the world’s population growth happened in places with very low emissions.

Even this does not capture it. The paper points out that around one sixth of the world’s population is so poor that it produces no significant emissions at all. This is also the group whose growth rate is likely to be highest. Households in India earning less than 3,000 rupees a month use a fifth of the electricity per head and one seventh of the transport fuel of households earning Rs30,000 or more. Street sleepers use almost nothing. Those who live by processing waste (a large part of the urban underclass) often save more greenhouse gases than they produce.

Many of the emissions for which poorer countries are blamed should in fairness belong to us. Gas flaring by companies exporting oil from Nigeria, for example, has produced more greenhouse gases than all other sources in sub-Saharan Africa put together. Even deforestation in poor countries is driven mostly by commercial operations delivering timber, meat and animal feed to rich consumers. The rural poor do far less harm.

The sea is already rising at an increasing rate because of climate change.

Scientists are predicting seas will rise globally by more than a metre by the end of this century, and perhaps much more. For example, melting of the Greenland ice sheet is accelerating, it contains the equivalent of about 7 metres of sea-level rise. Around the world many thousands of communities will be lost, millions of people will be displaced, and the map of the continents will be changed forever.

In early summer, we are planning to walk the eastern side of Port Phillip Bay, to highlight the impacts of sea level rise on people, communities and landscapes along the way. We will leave Sorrento on the Mornington Peninsula, and head north along the coast, marking the one metre level where we can with a simple marker (a stick with piece of blue ribbon).

We aim to walk between 15 and 20 kilometres a day, and we welcome local people and organisations to join us for sections of the walk. We will hold a number of public forums on the way (possibly one in the southern Peninsula, one in Frankston, one in St Kilda). We aim to finish the walk at Port Melbourne, where we will hold a press conference on the morning of friday Nov 27.

Early next year the walk will continue along the western side of the Bay.

During the walk, we will collect still images and video grabs of people, asking them to explain their reaction to climate change and what they want to see the state and federal governments do to respond, including Kevin Rudd at Copenhagen. We will also ask people to talk about where they live and what sea level rise would mean for them. We will do daily video and written updates on our website so people can follow the walk. We also expect that a range of local environmental issues will emerge and be featured on the website. The site will also contain substantial background materials on sea level rise and Port Phillip Bay.

The walk will finish shortly before the international climate change negotiations in Copenhagen. While walking, we will encourage people to sign our ‘demand climate justice’ postcards, which call on the Australian government to show leadership at Copenhagen. We are urging the government to unconditionally commit Australia to a minimum of 40% cuts in emissions by 2020 and a global target of well below 350 ppm of carbon dioxide-equivalent.

The walk has been initiated by Friends of the Earth Melbourne in partnership with the Victorian Climate Action Centre.

More info here: http://www.melbourne.foe.org.au/?q=node/576

There will be a stand-alone website operating here soon:

www.portphilliprising.org