Like a lot of savers , I see promises escalate over the race to net-zero , each outdoing the last and I wonder how likely these promises are to be met and how I can tell if my money is mattering to the planet. I am not the only one, Rob Gardner is looking to find ways for us to maintain the bio-diversity on earth and capturing the carbon emissions that threaten us. But more than this, he is looking at ways in which this can be done with integrity, here is his idea.
I’ve been running this post on the AgeWage and Pension PlayPen linked in group and have got some interesting and challenging responses.
Nico Aspinall
Does look interesting. We definitely need significant improvement in the innovation and rate of protection of biodiversity. If anyone’s read “Ministry for the future” by the wonderful Kim Stanley Robinson then this route will be familiar. Great to see science fiction becoming reality.
I’d be worried about a couple of features though.
1. I’m really worried about promoting nature as carbon capture – it just doesn’t have the capacity of 100s of millions of years of the carboniferous period and can lead to corporates paying money to keep existing high-carbon industry alive. Carbon capture has to be prioritised against actual hard to abate processes, rather than as currency.
2. Distributed ledgers, particularly for currency, are incredibly energy intensive. Imagine if every time I went to the shop the entire planet’s computers had to validate my payment of currency to the shopkeeper! Until we have fusion I’d think there’s a balancing point in future where this makes the situation worse.
Nico goes on to point to developments in nuclear fusion which may provide a get out of jail for the planet (though maybe not in time to save our dwindling natural resources). You can read about fusion on this blog- here.
His points are well made and there is no perfect solution. However if we can find ways forward that don’t cause more trouble than they are worth, shouldn’t we explore them?
Rob’s ideas are worth exploring – so are Nico’s.
Of course, the problem with nuclear fusion as a power source is that it is five years away, and has been for the past thirty years!