Mayer Hillman is a godfather, on this side of the pond, of radical environmental thinking. Trained as an architect and planner, he has worked for thirty years in social policy and was one of the first to propose legislative carbon rationing and emissions trading, now put into practice for EU businesses. How We Can Save the Planet, published a couple of years ago, puts out his arguments in a slim paperback written clearly and accessibly. I was pretty surprised to find still un-reviewed on WC and to find only one post back in 2003 discussing its core idea of "Contraction and Convergence" as the way to solve climate change. About time to change this although I am sure to soon stand corrected by WC readers eager to join the debate.
How We Can Save the Planet deliberately takes the reader from first principles why climate change happens, how fast, and what its effects are. Evidence-based, clearly argued (worth reading for anyone who has to encounter sceptics on a daily basis) and illustrated with a few choice statistics that make the case watertight, he then proceeds step by step to make the case for why we as individuals do not have rational excuses for refusing to face the facts. Borrowing perhaps a little too much from the psychoanalyst, he even lists ten common excuses ranging from I blame the government to At least I am doing something and combats them with a somewhat Presbyterian tone of castigation for mental weakness that lays the ground for the proposals to come.
There is a widespread belief that economic growth and environmental improvement can be pursued simultaneously and further, that improved environmental conditions are only possible in an economy that is burgeoning. In Hillmans world, both these statements are untrue. Economic growth only results in exponentially increasing emissions (principally from developing nations aspiring to reach the dizzy heights of the developed) as technology, although it helps, can never meet the scale of the challenge. He cogently argues that current governmental and inter-governmental strategies are failing and that none of the currently developing technologies fuel cells, renewable power, carbon sequestration will make more than the smallest dent in the worlds growing appetite for carbon fuels.
Hillman sees the only way of protecting the planet as sacrificing economic growth decoupling quality of life from economic success and carbon emissions. Economic growth is a tool for improving quality of life and well-being, but it is often forgotten that it was never meant to be an end in itself any economic approach that endangers the future of the planet, as our current model is doing, is unacceptable no matter how much wealth is generated.
Thus the principle of Contraction and Convergence. A limit must be agreed on how much CO2 can be allowed to exist within the atmosphere, and a timescale is calculated to reach this. Secondly, global convergence towards this date involves converging towards equal per capita shares of emissions. In his world, the only equitable way of limiting our emissions and thus the only way Hillman sees as acceptable across developed and developing nations according to principles of social justice is global, individual carbon rationing. While achieving this political consensus is difficult, Hillman views the role of the UK as key to this global advocacy, although C&C is now backed by a range of groups including most EU ministers, the Africa Group of Nations, and even some World Bank statements.
WC readers will be all too familiar with the problems of intergovernmental agreement, the bureaucracy of large-scale carbon trading and all the rest. But what is of interest is Hillmans emphasis on the ethics of his approach the principle of fair shares and a global approach rather than a national one. Rather than the usual arguments over carbon taxation, the notion that human rights might include the equal right for all individuals to live in a world free from climate change, and thus its inverse an equal responsibility not to pollute during an individuals lifetime is logical, perhaps unnervingly so.
Climate change is an ethical issue and tackling the carbon dioxide emissions that cause it is a moral imperative, in all likelihood the key one of our time. Although the impact on Western lifestyles may appeal to Hillman closer communities, a quieter environment, but no holidays or Olympic Games his argument is that of the moralist, preaching asceticism for the sake of the greater good, and whether you like it or not. Unlike other religions, there is no opt-out for Mayer Hillman: you either play ball, or condemn your fellow man to extinction. A grim, if realistic wake-up call for those who might rather keep their heads in the sand or even, like myself, think that we are doing our bit, and certainly well worth a read.
