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Benjamin McKeown

Water, Food and Energy | UN-Water - 0 views

www.unwater.org/...water-food-and-energy

water food energy Nexus

shared by Benjamin McKeown on 01 Nov 18 - No Cached
  • Benjamin McKeown on 01 Nov 18
     
    "The water-food-energy nexus is central to sustainable development. Demand for all three is increasing, driven by a rising global population, rapid urbanization, changing diets and economic growth. Agriculture is the largest consumer of the world's freshwater resources, and more than one-quarter of the energy used globally is expended on food production and supply. The inextricable linkages between these critical domains require a suitably integrated approach to ensuring water and food security, and sustainable agriculture and energy production worldwide."
Benjamin McKeown

Food, energy and water: the politics of the nexus | Jeremy Allouche | Science | The Gua... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...od-energy-water-politics-nexus

water food energy Nexus

shared by Benjamin McKeown on 06 Nov 18 - No Cached
  • Jeremy Allouche
  • In a paradoxical way, this was the first time that the business community came to realise the limits to growth.
  • modellers, farmers, and civil engineers have known about these inter-relationships for a long time.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • systems approach, where the interactions between different sectors are modelled as global and regional flows, ignoring day-to day realities, local priorities and needs; • A decision-making tool based on these interactions, which provides an economic valuation of these resources and a market mechanism to efficiently allocate them.
  • It treats the trade-offs between human needs for water, energy and food as a perfect equilibrium model, in which resource allocation can be decided.
  • This can encourage the commodification of resources, downplaying environmental externalities, such as biodiversity and climate change, as well as poverty alleviation needs.
  • The villagers affected by the Rasi Salai Dam are now experiencing water scarcity after losing these wetlands.
  • Originally, the government claimed that the dam would provide water for 5,500 hectares of land
  • look
  • This example highlights how elements of the nexus, whether food, water or energy security, take on different meanings at different levels of analysis, from the global to the local.
  • optimisation;
  • A different framing of the nexus is required: one which recognises that global priorities may not reflect local concerns; and that resource allocations are political decisions, which need to be decided through more open and transparent decision making. The nexus must become more inclusive, so that its interrelationships can be grounded in local realities and human needs.
Benjamin McKeown

THE POLITICS OF CLIMATE CHANGE EXPLAINED - Lawrence Anthony Earth Organization - 0 views

www.earthorganization.org/cs-of-climate-change-explained

climate change kyoto

shared by Benjamin McKeown on 08 Sep 16 - No Cached
  • More than 150 nations signed it back in December 1997 at a meeting in Kyoto.
  • eorge W. Bush was installed as President soon afterwards, and announced that he was pulling the US out of the deal altogether. Since the US is the source of a quarter of emissions of greenhouse gases that was a big blow, but the other nations decided to carry on and they finally reached agreement in Marrakech in November 2001.
  • ndustrialised nations have committed themselves to a range of targets to reduce emissions between 1990
  • ...30 more annotations...
  • he base year, and 2010.
  • an average 8 per cent cut for most of Europe to a maximum 10 per cent increase for Iceland and an 8 per cent increase for Australia.
  • European Union have agreed to share out their entitlement
  • atification of the treaty in national legislatures.
  • “flexibility mechanisms”
  • meet some targets by encouraging the natural environment to soak up more CO2 rather than by cutting emissions.
  • carbon sinks”
  • qualify for carbon credits by planting forests that soaked up CO2.
  • It was finally agreed that countries will be able to claim some carbon credits for planting forests in developing countries. And they will also be able to allow countries to claim credit for activities such as soil conservation, which will allow more carbon to be soaked up in soils.
  • carbon trading
  • But the fear is that some countries may find themselves with spare credits to sell just because their economies have slowed down, which would undermine the whole purpose of the protocol.
  • hot air”. Japan, Canada and perhaps others would like to buy up Russia’s spare permits.
  • But sceptics still see hot-air trading as a Trojan Horse for undermining the protocol.
  • lean Development Mechanism. This allows industrialised countries to claim credit for various activities in developing countries. It could become a major engine for getting clean energy technologies into poorer countries, so heading them off the dirty path to industrialisation that the rich nations took.
  • And the rules are biased towards small energy projects – solar cell systems, for exampl
  • he protocol allows industrialised countries to plant “carbon sink” forests in the tropics, for instance, where they will grow faster. They can also invest in clean energy technologies in the developing world, and claim carbon credits for doing so.
  • The US has demanded, both before and after Kyoto, that developing countries should accept their own specific emissions targets
  • it was intended to cut emissions by industrialised countries by an average of slightly over 5 per cent by the year 2010
  • hard to police, particularly the clauses on carbon sinks.
  • at perhaps 1.5 per cen
  • Will the Kyoto measures solve the problem of global warming? They will hardly scratch the surface. T
  • say it will buy us 10 years at most
  • . A reasonable target might be twice pre-industrial levels, which works out at 50 per cent above today’s levels.
  • Cutting emissions by 60 per cent is a suggested figure.
  • The Kyoto Protocol was drawn up with the long term as the primary focus. In essence, the protocol assumes that what we really need to worry about is the climate in a century’s time, not today.
  • CO2 sticks around for about a century. Methane, the second most important greenhouse gas, generally lasts in the atmosphere for about a decade. But while it’s there it is many times more potent.
  • This “hundred-year rule” has the effect of downgrading the importance of methane, and giving only small credit to countries that try to cut methane emissions.
  • the protocol gives a country that reduces its methane emissions by a tonne 20 times as much credit as for reducing CO2 emissions by a tonne.
  • Cows can be given less gas-inducing feed. Leaks in gas pipelines can be plugged. And so on.
  • Technically, we are going to have to find many more ways of producing energy without burning fossil fuels – the so-called carbon-free economy. Politically, we are going to have to find a way of doing so which doesn’t affect the growing economies of the developing nations, whose responsibility for the build-up of greenhouse gases so far has been minimal. Some people think this will require moving towards equal pollution rights for every citizen on the planet, a policy endorsed by Britain’s Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution earlier this year.
Benjamin McKeown

A complete guide to carbon offsetting | Environment | The Guardian - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...fset-projects-carbon-emissions

climate change consequences management carbon offsetting

shared by Benjamin McKeown on 28 Nov 17 - No Cached
  • Carbon offset schemes allow individuals and companies to invest in environmental projects around the world in order to balance out their own carbon footprints.
  • designed to reduce future emissions
  • energy technologies or purchasing and ripping up carbon credits from an emissions trading scheme.
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  • oaking up CO2 directly from the air through the planting of trees.
  • Some people and organisations offset their entire carbon footprint while others aim to neutralise the impact of a specific activity, such as taking a flight
  • visits an offset website, uses the online tools to calculate the emissions of their trip, and then pays the offset company to reduce emissions elsewhere in the world by the same amount – thus making the flight "carbon neutral".
  • £8/$12 for each tonne of CO2 offset
  • carbon neutrality included as part of the price.
  • most of the best-known carbon offset schemes have long-since switched from tree planting to clean-energy projects – anything from distributing efficient cooking stoves through to capturing methane gas at landfill sites.
  • many people argue that offsetting is unhelpful – or even counterproductive – in the fight against climate change
  • Just as indulgences allowed the rich to feel better about sinful behaviour without actually changing their ways, carbon offsets allow us to "buy complacency, political apathy and self-satisfaction"
  • "Our guilty consciences appeased, we continue to fill up our SUVs and fly round the world without the least concern about our impact on the planet … it's like pushing the food around on your plate to create the impression that you have eaten it."
  • "a positive approach to offsetting could have public resonance well beyond the CO2 offset, and would help to build awareness of the need for other measures."
  • This boils down not just to the effectiveness of the project at soaking up CO2 or avoiding future emissions. Effectiveness is important but not enough. You also need to be sure that the carbon savings are additional to any savings which might have happened anyway.
  • The carbon savings would only be classified as additional if the project managers could demonstrate that, for the period in which the carbon savings of the new lightbulbs were being counted, the recipients wouldn't have acquired low-energy bulbs by some other means.
  • The problem is that it's almost impossible to prove additionality with absolute certainly, as no one can be sure what will happen in the future,
  • If that happened, the bulbs distributed by the offset company would cease to be additional, since the energy savings would have happened even if the offset project had never happened.
  • To try and answer these questions, the voluntary offset market has developed various standards, which are a bit like the certification systems used for fairly traded or organic food
  • Voluntary Gold Standard (VGS) and the Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS).
  • One VGS-certified biomass power plant refused to allow her around, though staff there reported a number of concerns such as trees being chopped down and sold to the plant, which was designed to run on agricultural wastes.
  • f we're to tackle climate change, they argue, the projects being rolled out by offset companies should be happening anyway, funded by governments around the world, while companies and individuals reduce their carbon footprints directly.
  • Only in this way – by doing everything possible to make reductions everywhere, rather than polluting in one place and offsetting in another – does the world have a good chance of avoiding runaway climate change, such critics claim.
  • some carbon-neutrality advocates suggest offsetting carbon-intensive activities such as flights two or three or even ten times ove
  • The point is simply that the world is full of inexpensive ways to reduce emissions. In theory, if enough people started offsetting, or if governments started acting seriously to tackle global warming, then the price of offsets would gradually rise, as the low-hanging fruit of emissions savings – the easiest and cheapest "quick wins" – would get used up.
Benjamin McKeown

Judging the COP21 outcome and what's next for climate action | E3G - 0 views

www.e3g.org/...-whats-next-for-climate-action

COP21 climate change

shared by Benjamin McKeown on 19 Apr 16 - No Cached
  • An enduring, legally binding treaty on climate action which contains emission reduction commitments from 187 countries starting in 2020. The Paris Agreement will enter into force once 55 countries covering 55% of global emissions have acceded to it.
  • commitments for additional action to reduce emissions and increase resilience were made by countries, regions, cities, investors, and companies.
  • signals the end of business as usual for the energy industries. Future investment will need to be compatible with a zero carbon world.
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • all countries make commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and manage the impacts of climate change. It will shape climate action for decades into the future.
  • countries will need to review and increase their emission reduction commitments every 5 years in order to meet the long term goal of greenhouse gas neutrality by the second half of century.
  • ncluding the G20 and the Sustainable Development Goals.
  • renewables will make up 78% of new power generation investment to 2030
  • n major economies.
  • drive down the cost of renewable energy.
  • Paris Agreement beyond $100bn promised up to 2020 will provide support to emerging and developing countries
  • increasing emission cuts every 5 years to meet that goal.
  • ong term goal of greenhouse gas neutrality i
  • rapid phase out of fossil fuels.
  • multilateral diplomacy. I
  • manage an orderly transition away from a fossil fuel
  • G20 has established a taskforce on the implications of climate policy on financial stability
  • adaptation, resilience and response
  • Scenario 1: ‘Le Zombie’ – tactical deal with high potential for collapse. >        Scenario 2: ‘Comme ci, Comme ça’ – modest progress with guarantees on finance. >        Scenario 3: ‘Va Va Voom’ – cements a new enduring regime on climate change.
  • Climate action beyond Paris 2015
Benjamin McKeown

Advertising and Global Culture | Cultural Survival - 0 views

www.culturalsurvival.org/...advertising-and-global-culture

culture HL TNC

shared by Benjamin McKeown on 26 Feb 19 - No Cached
  • of
  • Author Janus Noreen No one can travel to Africa, Asia, or Latin America and not be struck by the Western elements of urban life. The symbols of transnational culture - automobiles, advertising, supermarkets, shopping centers, hotels, fast food chains, credit cards, and Hollywood movies - give the, feeling of being at home. Behind these tangible symbols are a corresponding set of values and attitudes about time, consumption, work relations, etc. Some believe global culture has resulted from gradual spontaneous processes that depended solely on technological innovations - increased international trade, global mass communications, jet travel. Recent studies show that the processes are anything but spontaneous; that they are the result of tremendous investments of time, energy and money by transnational corporations. This "transnational culture" is a direct outcome of the internationalization of production and accumulation promoted through standardized development models and cultural forms.
  • The common theme of transnational culture is consumption. Advertising expresses this ideology of consumption in its most synthetic and visual form.
  • ...20 more annotations...
  • Advertisers rely on few themes: happiness, youth, success, status, luxury, fashion, and beauty. In advertising, social contradictions and class differences are masked and workplace conflicts are not shown. Advertising campaigns suggest that solutions to human problems are to be found in individual consumption, presented as an ideal outlet for mass energies...a socially acceptable form of action and participation which can be used to defuse potential political unrest. "Consumer democracy" is held out to the poor around the world as a substitute for political democracy.
  • Transnational advertising is one of the major reasons both for the spread of transnational culture and the breakdown of traditional cultures.
  • Transnational culture strives to eliminate local cultural variations. Barnett and Muller discuss the social impact of this process:
  • What are the long range social effects of advertising on people who earn less than $200 a year? (Peasants, domestic workers, and laborers) learn of the outside world through the images and slogans of advertising. One message that comes through clearly is that happiness, achievement, and being white have something to do with one another
  • In mestizo countries (sic) such as Mexico and Venezuela where most of the population still bear strong traces of their Indian origin, billboards depicting the good life for sale invariably feature blond, blue-eyed American-looking men and women. One effect of such "white is beautiful" advertising is to reinforce feelings of inferiority which are the essence of a politically immobilizing colonial mentality...The subtle message of the global advertiser in poor countries is "Neither you nor what you create are worth very much, we will sell you a civilization (emphasis added).
  • Transnational firms and global advertising agencies are clearly aware of the role of advertising in the creation of a new consumer culture in Third World countries
  • Television antennas are gradually taking the plac
  • tom-tom drums across the vast stretches of Africa. Catchy jingles are replacing tribal calls in the Andes of Latin America. Spic-and-span supermarkets stand, on the grounds where colorful wares of an Oriental Bazaar were once spread throughout Asia. Across vast continents hundreds of millions of people are awakening to the beat of modern times.
  • Increasingly advertising campaigns are aimed at the vast numbers of poor in Third World countries
  • As one U.S. advertising executive observes about the Mexican consumer market, even poor families, when living together and pooling their incomes, can add up to a household income of more than $10,000 per year
  • The use of television to spread transnational culture is especially effective with illiterates
  • By consuming Coca-Cola, Nestle products, Marlboro, Maggi, Colgate or Revlon, Ivorians are not only fulfilling unnecessary needs but also progressively relinquishing their authentic world outlook in favor of the transnational way of life.
  • In trying to be as white as possible, that is to say, in becoming ashamed of their traditional being, the Ivorians are at the same time relinquishing one of the most powerful weapons at their disposal for safeguarding their dignity as human beings: their racial identify. And advertising is not neutral in such a state of affairs.
  • Yet, the advertising of Coca-Cola and Heinekens portrays drinking as an individual act rather than a collective one.
  • Santoro concluded that these stereotypes held by children were largely the same ones to be found in typical Venezuelan television and advertising contents.
  • These results, while very tentative, suggest that the impact of transnational culture is greater among the poor - the very people who cannot afford to buy the lifestyle it represents. The poor are more likely to associate consumption with happiness and feel that industrialized products are better than the locally made ones. But at the same time they are painfully aware that only the rich have access to the lifestyle portrayed.
  • Virtually every child showed an acute awareness of the different access to these products by class.
  • Again, poor children more often answered that Nescafe is coffee, and Tang is orange juice
  • poorer children were significantly more likely to associate the luxury possessions with happiness than the rich children.
  • What political impact does the spread of transnational culture have on the poor for whom luxury lifestyles are not possible? How do they deal with the daily contradictions that this awareness implies? How much will they accept and how much will they reject? How can they maintain their own identities in the face of transnational culture
  • Benjamin McKeown on 26 Feb 19
     
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