Author: Milan

Rand on climate capitalism

As a practical matter, the democratic uproar needed to build whatever alternative economy [Naomi] Klein and the Pope have in mind is far greater than the upswell of the Climate Capitalism I’m proposing, which harnesses financial markets in the climate fight. Reengaging our political system to reform financial institutions like the World Bank, motivate the quantitative analysts (quants) on Wall Street, and redirect trade agreements to accelerate climate solutions is faster and more effective than waiting for something akin to Che Guevara’s revolución. I will admit that I simply don’t know what that revolution looks like. Nor how we manage a complex modern economy without market forces. Those who’ve tried (today’s Venezuela comes to mind) failed miserably. And none of the far-left socialist experiments of the past gave up growth — the primary bugbear in Klein’s view.

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The trillions of dollars that sit in money markets and pension funds is the most powerful tool in our climate arsenal — if it can be redirected. We need to co-opt capital markets, not slay them. That capital is conductor for the rest of the economic orchestra. With it, we unlock the financial, engineering, and entrepreneurial might that can rebuild global energy systems. To think overwise is naïve — the supply chains are too complex, the scale of manufacturing and project development too big, and the degree of entrepreneurial innovation required too deep. Like it or not, we must harness the very market forces that threaten our planet, to save the planet.

Rand, Tom. The Case for Climate Capitalism: Economic Solutions for a Planet in Crisis. ECW Press, 2020. p. xxviii-xxix

Related:

CFFD campaign timelines and institutional memory in Canada

Amanda Harvey-Sánchez — who played a key role in the first Toronto350.org / UofT350.org divestment campaign — has written a detailed timeline of the campaign at the University of Toronto.

This kind of effort is especially valuable given the limits on institutional memory in the campus fossil fuel divestment (CFFD) movement. In part that’s because of how campaigns of student volunteers will experience constant turnover, though it is also the product of the informal style of organizing promoted by 350.org and implemented by most CFFD campaigns.

The closest document which I have a record of is from the SFU campaign, though it is much less detailed.

With student volunteers dispersing in all directions following graduation, and with few institutionalized structures to preserve knowledge between cohors of organizers, it has been especially useful to see some of the campaign debriefs which have followed divestment commitments. Climate Justice UBC (which I think is the new name / successor organization to UBCC350) released an especially good presentation about their campaign.

Canadian trains worse for the climate than flying?

I last flew in 2007, avoiding the practice since because of its unsustainability and the damage it does to the climate.

Nonetheless, my objection is to the unsustainable fossil fuel use and not to flying per se. I just think flying makes people travel more frequently and farther than they would otherwise be willing to go, and thus the damage from flying comes when people come to feel entitled to it and build lifestyles that depend on it.

Over the years I have seen a lot of inconsistent numbers on CO2 emissions from flying versus the train or other options. Today, the CBC posted some figures from Ryan Katz-Rosene, “a University of Ottawa professor who studies sustainable transportation”:

Taking VIA’s “Canadian” service from Toronto to Vancouver would generate 724 to 4,287 kilograms of CO2 per person. In comparison, an economy flight between those two cities would generate 464 to 767 kilograms of CO2 per person.

VIA’s “Ocean” service between Montreal and Halifax generates 218 to 1,292 kilograms of CO2 per person, compared to 152 to 482 kilograms of CO2 per person for an economy flight.

Katz-Rosene published the findings in the journal The Canadian Geographer and wrote about them on the University of Ottawa website in 2020. He tried to confirm the numbers with VIA, but they did not confirm or deny the figures, despite multiple conversations with him.

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Katz-Rosene blames “diesel-guzzling locomotives hauling fairly empty trains” — including sleeping and dining cars — on those lines.

English’s study found that just adding a snack car can increase a train’s greenhouse gas emissions intensity by 19 per cent, and that increasing seating density was one of the easiest ways to cut emissions and energy use.

Back in 2009, my friend Matt did some calculations of his own to estimate Toronto to Vancouver flights as around 330 kg of CO2 each way in an 80% full 767 or A320.

I have known all through the PhD that I would need to do at least one last trip to Vancouver, to clear things out of storage at my parents’ house and ship everything I want to keep back to Toronto. With my brother getting married in August, the plan is now to combine those purposes into one trip, along with seeing the old sights and friends who are still in town. Enduring a four day train voyage each way was broadly unappealing even before COVID, but now I would expect it to be a vexing mixture between feeling constrained by public health protection rules and feeling frustrated and worried about other passengers not following them. Four days in a rolling box, sharing the air with people who I can’t control, is not my idea of a nice break from work or great scenic way to see the country. If the climate impact is worse than flying, there seems no reason to do it.