Why don't we go green? - Antony Williamson

The relentless sun rises over the Thar desert, Rajasthan

It seems the warnings are not being heeded. Levels of CO2 in the atmosphere continue to rise on a world-wide scale and are now higher than at any point in the last 800,000 years. What's more levels have grown by 30ppm in just 17 years, a rise which, whenever it has happened in the past took 1000 years to come about naturally .

With the current media attention on the subject, the Live Earth concerts taking place in July, the publishing of the Stern and IPCC reports and the ever more dire predictions of the consequences if no action is taken, it seems few can be unaware of the topic of climate change. Yet UK emissions of greenhouse gases not reduced over the last five years, failing to move towards the government's goal of 20 per cent less CO2 emissions by 2010 . Indeed, emissions from aviation have risen steeply, doubling between 1990 and 2005 and rising by 7.1 percent domestically and 5.7 percent for international aviation between 2004 and 2005.

Worse still it can be argued that this fails to show the whole picture of the CO2 which the UK is responsible for setting into the atmosphere. Christian Aid has estimated that UK companies may in fact account for 9-15 percent of global carbon emissions - not only due to oil and gas procurement but also owing to the changes which took place in the UK economy over the past 30 years, whereby manufacturing was largely moved to plants in countries with cheaper labour costs. The consumption of these goods nevertheless still takes place in the UK. So why aren't we changing? This article attempts to take a frank look at what might be holding individuals in the UK back from emitting less CO2 and asks what might change this in the future.

1) Although consensus appears to be strong among the scientific community that global warming is a) a serious threat, and b) caused by human activity; doubts still abound. Even if these are often propagated by those who feel they have much to lose by a change to the status-quo, they are sufficient for some to claim that human destruction of the environment is only a theory. These doubters will probably continue their mantra for quite some time yet; after all the “seven dwarves” were still claiming in 1994 that nicotine was not addictive ! It is unlikely that a “theory” such as global warming could be proven beyond all doubt i) while it is still continuing, ii) as the field of climate science is continuing to develop and iii) given that it is based around as complex a system as the climactic system of an entire planet; so the only question remaining is, how long will we wait to take action while the evidence becomes more and more shocking and unmistakable. How many lives must be uprooted, thrown in to turmoil or lost in countries rich and poor, near and far, how many habitats destroyed and species lost, how many cities ravaged by wind and water before we all realise our responsibility to act?

2) 'Doing something' about climate change seems to mean having to give things up to which we have become accustomed, to mean accepting a lower quality of life. We have become used in the West to generally improving living standards each generation, each decade even. There may be a genuine worry about how we would cope without certain things – many would be very unwilling to give up their mobile phone, even though most didn't possess one 15 years ago. One's freedom to enjoy comforts in life was previously only restricted by their availability and one's personal ability to afford them; so to begin considering the environment as a factor in purchasing decisions would in many cases require a quantum shift. It would also require information which is in most cases not available today. But above all, many will ask why they should move in the direction of denying themselves these hard-won freedoms and comforts?

3) In the grand scheme of things, people have many concerns, for example in terms of property, family & family, career, etc. These can easily take precedence in one's list of priorities, even if 'doing something about climate change' makes it on to one's list of personal priorities. International travel is important for many jobs and experience of having lived or worked abroad is often looked on favourably on a CV. In any case, the most industrious and committed person may feel there is little that s/he can actually do – isn't combating climate change more about not doing things? Can it really make a difference if I don't fly in an aeroplane that will fly anyway? All of this can lead to a very discouraging feeling of powerlessness.

4) There doesn't seem to be any immediate gain involved, the only real reason to do anything seems to be to help “save the planet”, and being a do-gooder is not often seen as cool! It does seem that the discussions around this topic seem to concentrate on the 'moral imperative' to act. Yet guilt will always be a relatively ineffective way of trying to get people to do something. Moreover, change is something that we are conditioned to wish to gain for ourselves, not have forced upon us; when change comes uninvited it is human nature to resist and even fight it. The question will be – why should we change for someone else's agenda?

5) After all, it's hard to directly relate global climate change with experience of life on a day-to-day basis; surely for most people in the UK their personal experience of the planet is that it seems fine. The term “global warming” implies something which many people in Britain would actually welcome – the country having a slightly warmer climate. It may yet help shake off the impression that every Bank Holiday and summer in the UK is always a wash-out! At the same time the projected negative effects seem to predominately disadvantage people elsewhere in the world, the very closest place being perhaps the Netherlands. What motivation does the individual really have for making an effort?

6) Government is expected to lead the way – we live in a society in which the government is expected to take responsibility and lead on larger or global issues. In fact both Tony Blair and Angela Merkel have been heard downplaying either the UK or EU contribution to climate change, saying that unless the US and China make changes their contributions will far outweigh ours . This may be true for official emissions but ignores Britain's wider global carbon footprint as referred to above. People in the UK will expect government to take the lead on this issue and create policy according to the urgency of the issue. If they fail to do this, the issue cannot surely be so pressing after all?

7) It takes courage to take action, to step out there, to do something different, and there is a tendency not to want to “jump first” - to be the first person/ country to act. A genuine fear also exists (owing in no small part I imagine to George W. Bush's portrayal of the situation as a choice between “the economy” and “the environment”) that those who act quickest will be the ones left behind in the global economy and as such end up poorer as a result of wanting to do something good. Politicians know they would find it very difficult to explain to voters why their job had to be sacrificed for the sake of a few mm of sea level (as it might be portrayed!). We may be in a situation in which everyone is waiting for someone else to take the first bold step.

8) There's no bad guy. You can try blaming the airlines, or the logistics companies, or the car-manufacturers, or MacDonalds, but at the end of the day, those airlines are flying to take you on holiday, the lorries are stocking your shops, the auto-firms made what you wanted to get around in, and even a hardened cynic would have some trouble to prove that global warming is entirely MacDonalds' fault. You can't blame this one entirely on asylum seekers, criminals, Tony Blair or even the Americans (well...). No, when it comes down to it, you're the bad guy and you're guilty of, well, just living your life in the best way that you could. So best to just ignore this issue completely!

So what can be done to make climate change an issue with which people are prepared to engage? Currently the only tactic seems to be to use guilt and threats of far off consequences to goad people into changing. But are guilt and fear really the most effective means of getting people to do something or to change their behaviour? I believe this will encourage at best reluctant and belated action, and make that action something likely to be dropped when a pressing problem comes along. Yet individuals, organisations, business and political leaderships are all capable of change, even dramatic change, when sufficient groundswell is present; this has been demonstrated many times throughout history.

There are reasons for hope; the level of mainstream media interest in this issue is surely unprecedented, transport firms are starting to advertise their services based on their relative level of carbon emissions, even offering carbon comparators finally allowing the environmental impact of a journey to be assessed along with time and cost. Politicians are at least discussing the issue, even if progress is as usual slow. More and more people are switching to green energy or fitting wind turbines/ solar panels to their houses. However, while a majority are not pro-actively seeking to reduce their carbon output and overall carbon emissions are flat or continue to rise, we're not doing enough.

Films such as Al Gore's “An Inconvenient Truth” may offer a way of bringing the full meaning of climate change home to people and help to create awareness, something which is certainly necessary. A viewing public used to dramatic special effects has to work hard to be impressed by graphs and photographic stills, but the figures the film presents should nevertheless be seen as widely as possible! However this still appears to go down the route of using guilt or fear as a tactic and it is hard to know how concern, however genuine, which comes about while sitting in a cinema, translates into action in one's daily life. To make living a greener life a wider priority for society will take a paradigm shift, which must surely include making action on this issue attractive in some way.

The celebrity governor of California was recently quoted as saying that going green must become 'sexy' for people to really want to be a part of it . It needs to become a new craze which people don't want to miss out on! In turn this can spurn further action on behalf of companies to make their products more environmentally friendly – supermarkets can use less packaging, source more local products and provide more information about the environmental impact of different products; but they must sense a competitive advantage in doing so. Car-makers can invest in research in alternative propulsion, alternative fuels, and reduced emissions. But they too must see it as in their commercial interest to do so.

Are we living in a real life disaster movie?

Action by one group alone however will be insufficient to solve a problem of this magnitude and until individuals are aware of their personal greenhouse gas emissions and willing and able to reduce it, the problem will remain. For this there is no substitute for government action. There are many concrete steps which can be taken, from ensuring information is available on consumer products, creating a transport infrastructure which gives people eco-friendlier alternatives when travelling, to designing tax policy to reward those who play their part and encourage innovation which lowers emissions and encourages sustainability. As yet almost all national governments have been too timid to make effective policy to tackle this problem, and this has to change.