In Heat: How to Stop the Planet From Burning, acclaimed British journalist George Monbiot seeks to set out an energy model that would allow Britain, and by extension other advanced economies, to cut their carbon emissions by 90 per cent.
In Monbiot’s introduction, he quotes environmentalist Mayer Hillman, who believes that if emissions were cut by the lesser amount of 80 per cent, that it would result in Britain being ‘a very poor third-world country’. This is obviously a very unsatisfactory prospect. Especially for those in the environmentalist movement keen to cultivate grass roots support.
Cutting Emissions While Maintaining an Advanced Economy
Countering this gloomy ‘third-world country’ outlook, Monbiot tries to show that developed, industrial economies can both reduce their emissions by 90 per cent and still remain modern.
Writes Monbiot:
“Though the proposals in this book will need to be adjusted in countries with different climates and of greater size, I believe the model is generally applicable: if the necessary cut can be made here, it can be made by similar means almost anywhere.”
The overall picture Monbiot gives of a post 90 per cent cut emissions world is a rather jumbled and slightly messy affair. This is probably because the reader is for the first time asked to look at in minute detail the way we use energy. As it stands, consumers simply turn on the fridge or light bulb without giving a thought to the complicated systems and technology that deliver electricity to the householder’s power point.
Monbiot suggests a mix of carbon capture and storage combined with renewable energy sources, like wind and solar. These chapters of the book are quite complicated and involved. Wind and solar contain a lot of complex variables. They are not perfect. They also have their own differing costs.
A society embarking upon this kind of major shift in its energy sources will have to engage in much serious thinking and adult debate (as opposed to much of the overly emotive argument we get in our media now.) It is asking citizens to contemplate an energy system that requires thoughtfulness, rather than the carelessness of the current system. Yet being smarter with the energy that we consume could yield creative results: improved technologies for one, and a more enlightened outlook on life.
The Pernicious Effect of Cars on Society
The other sections of the book deal with subjects like energy conservation in the home. Too many houses are leaky and don’t retain warmth. The modern day car culture is criticised. Mobiot acknowledges that car drivers wield too much political power and that they have had a deleterious effect on the culture by their demands for more and more individual freedoms.
Monbiot is one of the few writers to explicitly point to this. He notes:
“But the new libertarianism is also now driving down the pavement. Organisations such as the Association of British Drivers, which began by campaigning against speed cameras and road humps, have now joined forces with people calling for lower taxes and the destruction of the ‘nanny state’. The car has become an agent of political change.”
One source of our emissions Mobiot tackles is sure to upset many. He states out flatly that people will have to travel less by plane in the future. There is simply no getting around the profligacy of emissions caused by air travel.
The Irony of the Environmentalist Movement
George Monbiot closes his book by highlighting the great irony of the environmentalist movement to cut emissions. It is asking people to curb their own personal freedoms. Building up such freedoms has been a project of Western civilisation for a long time now. Modern societies have an inbred sense of entitlement.
Yet if you accept the science of climate change, rioting on the environment today may only be delaying an inevitable day of reckoning. Heat opens using a metaphor from Dr Faustus. In playwright Christopher Marlowe’s version of the story, Dr Faustus strikes a deal with the devil. He will live twenty-four years ‘in all voluptuousness’. At the end of that period , Dr Faustus will surrender his soul to hell. Faustus agrees, but doesn’t really believe his soul will eventually have to go to hell.
Alas, that day of reckoning does come. Dr Faustus can no longer stay in his fantasy land of denial, and must confront the shocking reality. George Monbiot believes we may have made a similar pact with the devil.
Published by Allen Lane, 2006.
Chris Saliba - Chris Saliba is a freelance writer. Read more of his workplace articles at chrissalibafreelancewriter.blogspot.com
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