David Hare-Scott wrote:
songbird wrote:
David Hare-Scott wrote:
...
The first thing our new Prime Minister will do will be to neuter any
action on climate change. And that is quite enough politics.

if you wait for the politicians in any country
at this point you are wasting time and probably
just looking for yet another reason to
procrastinate.


What a dopy argument. The amount that the individual can do alone is
completely trivial.

only people who put themselves in that category
are certain to remain there. the rest of us refuse
such classifications and do what we can. some may
appear trivial, but here is one example to counter
your statement.

in Africa there was a desert reforestation project
being conducted and the guy working on it was really
discouraged because so few of the projects or trees
would survive (if even one survived that was a gain
for that small space as far as i was concerned).
then he noticed bits of green growing from the ground
that were native plants, but in fact they were sprouts
from trees that were never allowed or trained to grow
larger (over grazing, trampled, cut off for firewood).
so he started talking to the people about how if they
would allow these sprouts to grow and train a few to
get larger then they could have trees again, that would
survive, but the people had to protect them and work a
bit to get the sprouts growing.

the result was not a few trees in a small area, but
over five million hectares of near desert returned to
more tree cover. that added wind-break on a hot day
often means the double or triple of a crop return. not
counting the fruits and firewood and the many returning
animals and insects or improved soil. how many tons of
extra carbon put back into the soil? no measurement
but it wouldn't be a small amount.

what was the cost? nothing. it wasn't a formal
project sponsored by any government. it worked
by word of mouth as farmers saw the actual results
and how things improved.

here is a link which gives more details:

http://permaculturenews.org/2013/08/...t-cant-see-it/


another smaller example would be the Strong Bees
of the Chikukwa, but i won't spoil that story by
attempting to summarize. it's a good read, these
people just did it and they'll keep on going in
some form even if the government or international
organizations abandon them again.

http://permaculturenews.org/2013/08/...he-full-story/


Millions of people together can do something but before
you have that organised the pollies who opposed it would be out of office
anyway and the job is already done. A grass-roots movement might force
action on a government but the effect they can have instead of government
action is quite insufficient.

if it gets done it surely isn't insufficient.


If you want to deal with climate change then elect a government that will
do it.

too slow. doing is faster. but, yes, vote,
and i do.


do what you can locally, find others to work
with who aren't obstructionists and pool
resources and efforts.

By all means, one has to lead by example if trying to bring about change but
don't fantasise that it will have any effect compared with (say) my local
port that exports hundreds of millions of tons of coal per year.

add the right scrubbers and processes and that
becomes much less of a problem. not that i think
it's a good idea to still be burning coal, but i
doubt China or India will be giving it up any time
soon. if we can encourage them to add better CO2
scrubbing then we've gained something where if we
just throw our hands up and say nothing can be
done, then we've fallen victim to a fantasy far
worse than hoping people will make needed changes.


songbird