A look at a low carbon future

I've been asked to describe my vision of a low carbon future - it's a bit like putting a drunk in charge of a pub - "what me? - but of course" - so here goes the utopian version - at the moment I fear the dystopian vision is far more probable - but we have to have hope!.

The Neo-liberal beast must be slain

Any  realistic vision of a low carbon future has to assume neoliberal philosophy will have been defeated. The developed world's dominant ideology underlies so many of the world's ills, and somewhere in the story of the development of decarbonisation it will have been fought head on. 

Leaving aside all the other evils this philosophy of greed brings to the world, it's guiding principle, maximising profit, is inherently incompatible with a low carbon world. The aggressive policies, to privatise and monetise all natural resources and active promotion of anti-sustainability, denialist  and illiberal ideologies flowing from neo-liberalism are inimical to decarbonisation. Even worse, all the evidence suggests the corporate propaganda machine is getting stronger and has the power to block a sustainable future, at least until it is too late to rescue a stable climate.

If black propaganda was the most powerful weapon neo-liberalism could offer it wouldn't present such an obstacle, but the extraction industries are the prime drivers of global money flows, energy is the absolute key to developed world economy. It's easy to forget the extent to which fossil fuel is embedded in everything we use, and the volume of money flow it creates. 

It's true that the energy embedded in fossil fuels could be substituted with energy from low carbon sources, but extracted hydrocarbon is a perfect way of transferring wealth upwards. It's not just the energy industry that has an interest in maintaining the status quo, the entire world capital market hinges on fossil fuel and that means a threat to the carbon economy is a threat to the world's most powerful individuals and corporate interests. 

In my view the battle with neo-liberal corporatism needs to take on the same populist cachet as the battle fought by the working classes to extract basic rights and decent treatment from the capitalist industrialists of the late 19^th century. In terms of a sustainable future the current status quo is about the equivalent of 7 year old kids sweeping under working machinery, 16 hour working days, poverty wages company stores and rotten boroughs. At some point in the not so very distant future carbon tax, heavy taxes on wealth and excessive profit, a re-regulation of the press to cut cross media ownership, re-nationalisation of services providing social essentials, transport, water, electricity, health care and education and the removal of subsidies on broadscale agro business crops are the minimum measures to seize initiative from corporate ecocide.

Assuming somehow we manage to win that battle where do we go?

It's fairly easy to see one sure path – energy can and must be decarbonised. (go to page four of the linked report). We don't need to use fossil fuel to produce meet our energy needs – but greens need to be  realistic about how this can happen. The notion that the UK could meet even it's current energy needs from renewables is one of the great green myths  - and to divert briefly from future visions to pathways we might take - I'd like to propose a rule - "don't even bother talking about green futures until you've read David MacKay". What he says in essence is "we are rich in renewable energy fluxes – but we use massive amounts of energy" – and even with a heavy focus on efficiency, a shift away from fossil fuels will increase demand for electricity. As a ball park -we use roughly the same amount of energy in the home as we do in transport – so a full conversion of transport to electricity will double demand – and while domestic demand would fall with rigorous efficiency measures, savings would be outstripped by the switch from fossil fuel domestic heating by electrically driven heat pumps. 

There will be wind farms and roof top solar everywhere, there will be some wave energy, and hopefully more tidal stream energy, and no big tidal barrage schemes – they are an environmental disaster! There will also have to be a base load of nuclear power – it presents risks, but the possibility of nuclear accident have to be balanced against the certainty of environmental catastrophe – and I would hope that along with the defeat of neo-liberalism we have had a global programme to solve to technical issues dogging thorium reactors (though the Chinese are running ahead of the game at the moment)  and seriously considered fast breeder technology, both to manage existing nuclear waste and accelerate decarbonisation.

I'd also hope that nuclear technology will be seen as an intermediate solution – and that with the creation of a practical high temperature superconducter a pan european/north african supergrid is in the final stage of construction allowing the northern economies to access the Mediterranean basin solar powerhouse. 

the gemsolar thermal solar plant in Spain -
producing electricity 24 hours a day in optiml sun conditions 

A supergrid would offer so much more than solar energy from the south, allowing a more rational balancing of both daily and seasonal peak demands, open access to potential pumped energy stores in mountainous regions and geothermal resources in volcanically active areas and ultimately a phasing out of nuclear power.

The Mediterranean solar powerhouse will have been in full swing long before the completion of the supergrid. There will be a successful bio-engineered algae that can convert atmospheric CO2 into usable hydrocarbon feedstock and that will create an industry producing new generation of plastics, produce low carbon fuel for transport demands that can't be met by electricity and also provide agricultural fertilisers and other high energy demand basic materials. The plastics industry will be an effective form of carbon capture as we will live in a world where durability rather than disposability is a guiding principle. 

This won't be a plastics industry aimed at producing and shipping poor products – but one that produced as very specific range of products with high reusability, solar and thermal stability and will be exported in pelletised form – often being deployable locally – to be processed in small, localised thermal moulding and 3d printing workshops to manufacture of a new generation of durable, repairable products, a process that will reduce transport intensity of goods and re-localise employment.

There will be plastics that will make superb high thermal value, lightweight building components capable of being constructed by individuals and collectives to enable the development of a new style of housing to replace extensive, energy inefficient, human unfriendly transport dependent housing stock of the 20^th and early 21^st century. They will, of course, embed solar and rainwater collectors, passive solar heating and will be energy neutral in construction and use. But they will also be designed and built by communities and reflect their needs. Processing of waste will be incorporated into local service plans. That could be high tech with bio-digesters or low tech with compost collection – as long as all nutrients are fully recycled and methane emissions are close to zero – the method doesn't matter. This construction model will release land, allow communities to be actively engaged in their own construction and development and be tailored to meeting the individual needs of it's occupants.

It's about changing the way we think about what makes us well off

Tim Jackson wrote a book called “Prosperity without Growth” It was an effort to summarise the thinking of the Sustainable Development Commission and its conceit was that “prosperity” - "flourishing, well being," is value rather than money dependent, that's to say, it flows from a sense of worth, purpose and belonging rather than a bank balance. There's a thought that if individuals re-engage in reformatting the built environment the alienation and isolation that dominates today's hydrocarbon intensive world will decline and stronger direct non-monetary cooperation will increase, resocialising services that are currently monitised like elderly care and child minding.


I see a real blend of regressive and futuristic technologies at work in a low carbon word. There's lots of room for an alternative to the urban vision. There's good evidence to suggest that more human intensive agriculture can be less chemical and carbon intensive and moreproductive than agro-industrial models – certainly for the production of the farm products we consume directly – meat, veg, dairy (I suspect cereals and other staple crops would still be best produced broad scale) and the humans who want to do that have every opportunity to build low carbon vernacular structures – be it clay lump, stone, wood or straw bale. As well as supplying locally sourced produce they will be active in collecting from the composting toilets in urban areas – they might use a horse and cart to do the rounds – and the animal components of their farms will provide a good deal of nutrient – I'd imagine a LEISA system rather than ideologically organic farming – anyone who's ever been serious about growing their own food ( I mean actually providing most of it – not just a few veg and a bit of salad it he summer) will acknowledge that there are times when a little agro-chemical input can save the day.

Transport is a huge issue. Of course, carbon powered cars will be replaced by electric vehicles, but I  hope we will have reflected on the extent to which the transformation of the human race to a wheeled species has harmed us. Our transport intensive economy has destroyed indigenous community, isolated families, destroyed local businesses and is a key mechanism in taking resources from local economies. It's less obvious that our wheeled society also provides an indirect subsidy to employers and businesses, who have progressively removed branches and local production facilitates as an economy measure, one that is effectively subsidised by their clients and employees need to travel – sometimes many miles, to access services and jobs.

For me, a low carbon future demands a mix of far wider international political cooperation and far more localism – and finding mechanisms to bring economic activity and its full benefits back into the local community is essential, a big rethink on attitudes to transport are a key issue. Electric cars have their uses – but I'm not convinced that battery technology will ever create high enough energy densities to make them as versatile as cars.

With more locally wholesome and complete local environments perhaps the demand for personal transport will decrease – there will obviously be lots of public transport and hopefully, as much for health and happiness as a dainty carbon footprint, people will walk and cycle more and routinely use vehicles for school, work and shopping far less. One thing I really dislike about current green thinking is that it tends to be very puritanical. On transport I truly hope is that while design can reduce demand for transport as a routine option, we still have good pathways for optional travel. I'm probably completely at loggerheads with the whole green movement in saying I don't see air travel as a problem. it's currently responsible for 5% of emissions globally, it's an easy rather than an essential target, especially as algae based solar produced bio-fuels are effectively carbon neutral. I have a hunch that extensive international travel has done a lot to build friendship networks across the world and that these have really helped us to resist state inspired xenophobia and its one use of high energy fuel that I see as justified. I'd hope there would be less freight transport but it won't go away – and it's probably not going to work on roads with electricity – so another reason for solar produced bio-fuel.

Carbon capture is almost certainly going to be an issue – we have probably already exceeded the global carrying capacity for current climate balance – I'm not a believer in geological storage of carbon – but I feel that as well as the conversion of atmospheric CO2 to stable plastics I already outlined I would imagine an exploration of practical ways of bio-fixing carbon. Re-planting forests has obvious multiple benefits – my plastic houses need thoroughly human friendly wooden interiors – and well preserved wood will stabilise it's carbon content for centuries. There's also been some great work developing large wooden structures  (worth remembering that concrete is responsible for 5% of current global carbon emissions) - I have no numbers but I would guess that timber planting is a relative drop in the ocean – but these are the kind of carbon capture and storage paths that can be explored with creativity and imagination.

On global scale modern day developing nations could well be far further along a sustainable path than developed world industrial economies – they haven't got a 200 year old infrastructure to fix – Africa in particular will have shot ahead as it's recognised that centralisation of economies are a function of the development of 18th and 19th century industrialisation – not an essential to a post carbon economy.

In general life will be less money based with everyone working fewer hours for cash and being far more involved in direct working relationships within their communities – Education will have returned to the development of individual potential and knowledge rather than a triage process for the corporate industrial machine, children will be re-wilded,space will automatically be created for nature.  perhaps most of all, our human need for connectedness and belonging, a psychological essential for us primates that, in our carbon alienated society is mostly met by consumerist junk, will perhaps be satisfied by a less mobile, richer more grounded life.