The world faces an enormous, truly global dilemma.   Carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions are trapping heat from the sun, warming the earth’s atmosphere, seas and land with severe consequences for climate, weather, sea level, arctic ice, the Gulf Stream and other natural global systems.  Even worse, there is a deadline or

‘tipping point’ somewhere in the years ahead - perhaps as early as 2050 (1).  After this passes a feedback loop will run out of control as tundra melts, releasing carbon, and the arctic becomes ice-free, with the darker ocean absorbing more heat.  The only solution is to somehow stabilise and even reduce the level of greenhouse gases, mostly carbon dioxide, held in the atmosphere.  While it may be possible to draw some carbon out of the atmosphere by planting trees and through technology, it is inescapable that if we are to face this problem and act on it we must dramatically and radically reduce our output of Co2.

But our whole economy, indeed practically our whole society, depends on burning carbon fossil fuels.  The reductions in Co2 emissions needed to have an impact on climate change are almost unimaginable when translated into the lives that most people in the Western World take for granted and regard as normal.  For a century and more our world - our buildings, our roads, our jobs, our settlement patterns, our relationships - have all been built around carbon.  Without this carbon, without petrol, aviation fuel, heating oil and electricity generation, it is hard to see how our world could operate.  It seems impossible.

Yet every year the world gets warmer and the temperature climbs and the glaciers melt and we find ourselves watching an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object.  What politician could legislate for huge carbon taxes, or prohibit flying, or ban SUVs without losing the next election?  As things stand, a carbon neutral world doesn’t just mean a little less driving; it means no car - at least for most people.  It means it would be very difficult to see one’s family on the other side of the world.  It means tearing down buildings and roads, getting rid of air-conditioning and shutting generating plants.  It could well mean losing your job.  Who is going to vote for that?  How could it happen?

And it’s not enough for this to happen in only one country or a few.  This is a global problem and so, if we are to prevent a horrific calamity, the people of almost every country on earth, with their different cultures and political systems and religions and interests, will all have to accept this incredible change to the most fundamental aspects of their economies and societies.  It is unimaginable.

Yet every year the world gets warmer.  Every year the scientists shout louder.  Every year awareness intensifies and spreads.  Every year the level of Co2 in the atmosphere increases and we get closer to the runaway tipping point.  The scale of the problem and of the dilemma we face is incredible.  We seem trapped.

But we’re not.  We’re human beings.  We have come a long way and we have the creativity and ingenuity and industriousness to escape this dilemma and continue to build a bright and progressive future.
 (1) “In general, surveys of the literature suggest increasing damage if the globe warms about 1C to 3C above current levels. Serious risk of large scale, irreversible system disruption, such as reversal of the land carbon sink and possible destabilisation of the Antarctic ice sheets is more likely above 3C”.

“The world will, in the absence of urgent and strenuous mitigation actions in the next 20 years, almost certainly be committed to a temperature rise of between about 0.5C and 2C relative to today by 2050″.

‘Scientific Symposium on Stabilisation of Greenhouse Gases’, 2005; UK Met Office; http://www.stabilisation2005.com/