Mon 18th Dec 2017
How would carbon rationing work?
Would it be forever?
Would it hurt?
BZE’s Vivien Langford talks to author Stan Cox in Salina Kansas about his book “Anyway you slice it”.
Some people are aware of the Climate Emergency, but others behave as if unaware. Australia’s per capita aviation emissions for example are 18 metric tonnes compares to 5 for a French Citizen.
What if this generation put a cap on fossil fuelled travel and energy use? Would it feel better if it was an app on your phone and was called a Carbon Allowance?
We say that the bulk of existing coal oil and gas must stay underground, so shouldn’t we treat these as precious commodities, to be rationed while we make the transition? A Government committee in the UK researched this and said it could become an essential measure but that it was” an idea before its time”. We look into why it is such a taboo subject.
“How the world breaks” is a new book by Stan Cox and his son Paul. We talk to Paul Cox in Copenhagen about the anthropology of disaster response. He praises countries like Bangladesh as the Netherlands without a budget”. He wants us to stop talking bout “natural;” disasters as if there was nothing we could do to mitigate them. When Greens MP Adam Bandt called PM Tony Abbott a “climate criminal ” during a Blue Mountains bush fire, he was condemned as insensitive. But when is there a “right time to connect the dots”? Paul talks about our bushfires and the floods and landslides that are testing resilience around the world. He says economists fear any restraint on growth more than they fear the worst that climate change can bring us.
How to change the narrative? Send us your ideas to : radioteam@bze.org.au
Interviews
Stan Cox – author of “Anyway you slice it ” and ” How the world breaks”
Paul Cox- Anthropologist and author “How the world breaks”
Music by David Rovics “East Tenessee”, Bangladeshi singer Mak Bul Chowdhury, and “Spirit of Place” sung by Yirmal Marika and Shane Howard.
Links:
Climate Action Collective
