After 9,999 ways that didn’t work: Time to change the law

Commentary, World affairs

‘We tried’, sings Louise Harris. Indeed we did. But we haven’t failed – yet. We have now identified all the strategies and ways that don’t work. So now it‘s time to start mobilising around the one solution we know works every time, as corporate lawyer Robert Hinkley has suggested it: changing the law.

Thomas Edison is said to have invented the light bulb on his ten thousandth attempt. When asked about his earlier failures, his response was that he didn’t fail. He just found 9,999 ways it didn’t work.

Getting the world together at the United Nations’ COP climate summits and pledging to keep global temperatures from rising above a specified target hasn’t worked 27 times. And it won’t work the 28th time either. So maybe it’s time to try something else? Something more direct. Something easier.

For instance, how about just telling the big emitters they must stop?

We can pass a law that will require the management of the big emitters – or all companies – to stop emitting significant quantities of greenhouse gases. Here’s how, according to former corporate lawyer Robert Hinkley: Read more

→ A declaration to remove the threat of climate horror

How bad is it?

In a development almost no one saw coming, we crossed 2°C of global heating over pre-fossil fuel times on Friday the 17th of November, and then again on the 18th of November 2023.

So for the first time, Earth has briefly exceeded that two-degree climate warming limit, which scientists have been warning the global community we should never cross.  

Source: Copernicus – a programme of the European Union

In the meantime, the Australian government says we need to burn more coal, oil and fossil gas – ignoring the terrible consequences. 

On Tuesday this week, the world emitted more than 100.1 million tonnes of CO², the highest ever recorded. Global emissions are continuing to rise by 1.5 per cent a year, and a new study has shown that corporate progress on curbing emissions is slowing. In fact, the study estimates that businesses’ direct greenhouse gas emissions will be 11 per cent higher in 2023 than last year. 

So to answer the question How bad is it?… things are looking pretty grim at this point, to be honest with you. The maths doesn’t add up, and the various methods, strategies and theories of change in the climate movement haven’t worked. 

So what do we do?

Very obviously something needs to change. And not just “something”. It is the Law that needs to be changed. Which unfortunately, as we have seen, no government is willing to do unless enough people demand it. Which not enough people will do unless they fully understand what is going on.

The #ClimateFight is more than anything an educational #InformationWar – a battle between truth and science against power and lies.

Don’t expect the mainstream media to step in here to save us in the last minute with doing that educational job for us. Again, as we have seen, they won’t.

The education needs to happen through ordinary people who are stepping up, through the grassroots assisted by professional communicators and influencers with an audience, who decide to join the fight – the climate fight, which basically is a fight for our lives and for all life on planet Earth.

“The deliberate and successful campaign by the oil and gas industry to hide climate science from the public, and sow doubt and confusion to this day, is a crime against humanity on a scale I can barely process, let alone forgive. Our current predicament infects my every waking thought. It’s led to the awful realisation that I have enemies. By which I mean powers and principalities that pose a threat to my grandchildren and their children. And yours, my friends. Forces that must be defeated.”
~ Tim Winton, Australian author

This is where the #ClimateRevolution begins: with you and me.

→ Hashtags: #FindYourRole in the #TheClimateRevolution

“It’s business which will kill your children. It’s business which is responsible for lethal humidity. But it’s policies which guide business. Business guided by government will either destroy or save this planet. Announce laws to render illegal any action which would cause global warming. Simple! Make us change.”
~ Dr Andrew Forrest AO, Founder and Executive Chairman of Fortescue Metals Mining

Climate denial in the fossil board room

“The massive Australian fossil fuel company Santos Ltd invited notorious climate change denier and fossil fuel advocate Alex Epstein to speak to its top staff members.

He told them that hot climates are better for humanity than cold ones.

Consider what this means. Santos decision makers are being told that actively trying to heat the planet is a desirable thing.

There is fundamentally no longer any excuse for media outlets, institutions, investors and service providers to treat this company as anything other than a direct and immediate threat to the safety of our species. And any organisation that helps greenwash them, or provides them the ‘benefit of the doubt’, is complicit in the harm they cause.”
~ Ketan Joshi on Linkedin.com

The problem in a nutshell

For decades, truth and science has been up against power, profits and lies. And governments are unwilling to take action unless enough people demand it. So as a result, the world has now entered uncharted territory, moving closer each day to bringing multiple dangerous tipping points. Yet media fails to educate the public on the danger and on the actions that need to be taken in all sectors of society, among these first of all: a fast and steady reduction of emissions by phasing out fossil fuels.

This is the problem in a nutshell. This is why we have a climate emergency. Whether we can secure a safe future for life on our planet, including for our own children, will depend on whether we manage to end society’s collective addiction to fossil fuels in time.

Change is coming

A new development in Europe shows change is coming: Last Thursday the European Union’s authorities officially approved an agreement on environmental crime – recognising “ecocide” as an aggravated offence under European law.

The proposed sanctions include both imprisonment and fines, depending on the severity of the offences.

A ten-year prison sentence is provided for individuals – including corporate representatives – who commit environmental offences resulting in death.

“Ecocide” is officially defined as “a qualified offence aimed at prosecuting serious harm to the environment – destruction or extensive and substantial damage that is either irreversible or lasting – leading to catastrophic environmental consequences.”

So: massive forest fires, oil spills, pollution caused by ships, or illegal water extraction, yes – but not massive emissions of carbon dioxide or methane.

The list of behaviours considered illegal is long, though, and it has actually been expanded “to ensure that offenders can be prosecuted even if they had permission to conduct their activities, especially when the authorisation was obtained fraudulently or through corruption, extortion, or coercion,” according to a parliament member who spoke about the agreement.

Regarding fines, companies will be subject to fines representing 5% of their annual global turnover or 40 million euros – 3% of turnover or 24 million euros for other offences – in the most serious cases. Additionally, they may be deprived of public funding and will be required to repair damages and compensate victims.

The text will be formally adopted in the European Parliament in the coming months, but the all-important political agreement has been reached.

→ Read more on www.stopecocide.earth

The environmental cracks

“Our life support systems are in free fall, and the current growth-based capital-centred system has proven itself not only incapable of remedying the situation, but is actively making it worse. Greenhouse gas emissions are likely to reach their highest levels ever in 2023. This is after knowing about the problem for more than three decades and holding 27 COPs on the topic. It is expected that 2023 will be the hottest year in over 125,000 years, and likely one of the coolest years of the rest of our lives. There has been a 69% reduction in Earth’s wildlife population since 1970. Scientists say we are in the midst of the sixth mass extinction and we are transgressing six of nine planetary boundaries, of which climate change and biodiversity loss are just two.

There is a garbage patch full of plastic three times the size of France in the Pacific Ocean, and yet plastic pollution doubles every six years. We have plastics in our blood, in the breastmilk of mothers, in the rain and places as yet untouched by humans. Geologists may look back on this era as the ‘plastic age’. We are also losing our forests at a rate of 27 soccer fields per minute and our industrial activities are likely to turn the Amazon Rainforest into a savannah. We’ve crossed the tipping point for the Arctic and we will see a blue ocean event in the next decade or so. I could go on, but I think you get my drift.

Perhaps the biggest crack of all when it comes to our environment is our complete inability to do anything about it: every ecological metric continues to get worse, and has done so for decades. Our governments remain committed to ‘economic growth’ as their entire reason for being, even though more growth means more energy use – at a time when we are trying to reduce emissions – and more of our living world is destroyed as our material footprint increases. What is the point of having all of this knowledge if we are not going to do anything with it? What kind of system grows itself into extinction?”
~ Erin Remblance, 10 November 2023