The scene was set in respect of climate changes in the 18th century, with the plethora of discoveries that would pave the way for modern science. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, this pace gathered with the onslaught of the industrial revolution and the concept of consumerism and growth. All that had happened before though, palled into insignificance with the arrival of the 21st century.
The main problem with climate issues had always been that of ownership. Whilst the issues and the perpetrators were painted in increasingly dark terms, it was initially industry and power suppliers who were blamed. The public thought either that it was a problem that would eventually be dealt with or that the problem was not nearly as significant as it was portrayed and that it would go away. The general public saw themselves more as bystanders than as perpetrators. Though they were all aware of the problems, they had assumed that if the threat became critical, that governments would intervene and that there would have been a solution available to those governments. What the public had not understood was the almost complete lack of interest or understanding by successive governments, who only really paid lip service to the problem. By the time the problem was beginning to be understood by governments, the implications of dealing with the issues were more worrisome to them than the issues themselves. Populations had grown, both in size and dependence on the areas which were causing the problems. Fuel use was at its greatest level ever and increasing and any changes to the subtle balance of progress and fuel use could severely damage economies. Governments did act in introducing new goals in reduction of greenhouse gasses and this reflected to the wider audience that they were acting with an understanding of the impact of what they were doing. This made the problem look like less of a threat to the wider audience who began to feel that at least the issues were being dealt with. For example, in 2007, the EU introduced plans for cars to emit 18% less emissions within a certain number of years, but this was only for new cars and by the time the first ones will roll off the production lines, car use in general will have increased by over 18%. Taking into account that the initial target was to reduce emisions, they will actuall increase. Of course, the EU always had the caveat that they had done what was necesarry at the time and that it was now back in the hands of the consumer. Prime Minister Blair had spoken in 2006 on the matter. Having been critiicised for holidaying in the Carribean and by doing so, increaing his carbon footprint. He responded in a typically political way. He agreed that it was a crucial issue and that it was important to understand the impact of ones carbon footprint but that 'there is not an ebargo on enjoying yourself', provided you did so responsibly. Crucially, he went on to say that at that time, China was introducing 2 new coal fired power stations per week. They would, during the following year (2007-8) produce more of a carbon footprint from these new generators alone than the whole of the United Kingdom would produce during that year. It was a wholly signifant comment and it was lost in the melee of a press comment about Carribean holidays. If every British vehicle was parked up and no transport was used and no food was prepared and cooked and no heating used and no lighting used within the UK for a whole year, the overall carbon footprint of man would have increased anyway. Even with the UK going back to the dark ages, it would not have made a significant change. This was the point that climate issues and the eventual fate they would bestow would be sealed. No action after this time would be strong enough to hold back the almost tidal effects of climate change.
I have often stated the paradox that by the time you understand a problem well enough to be able to do something about it, it will have got too big for whatever you do to have any effect. This paradox drives you back to the drawing board on a regular basis, developing new solutions which suffer under the same paradox. What eventually happens is that the paradox develops into a reporting cycle of doom which regretably is the period we entered into in the 21st century.
The whole issue of personal responsibility is taken to it's extremes by the autistic mind. Whilst the air above us and the mechanics that drive the absorbtion of carbon dioxide and production of oxygen remain 'a thing that just happens somewhere', we tend to look no further. Perhaps the real way to gain an understanding of climate issues is to view the problem from a different perspective. If we look at the average surface area of the atmosphere at it's absolute limit (approx 1000 kilometers above sea level) and divided it up and allocated it to every single man woman and child on the planet so that they had an equal amount, things would be different. Taking away the inevitable fact that within ten years, it would all belong to about 20 conglomerates which would want to rent it out to you. If this area was your sole source of life, individuals would be forced to view it's use in a different light. Would they want aircraft using it or would they allow the burning of fossil fuels within it etc. The probability is that they would not. Of course, over the centuries, there would have been an enormous change in the surface area allocated. An 18th century peasant would have had a much larger area and less difficulties in managing it, whereas the 21st century owner would have a tiny area which shrank all the time as the world population increased.
This management of your own area of atmosphere immediately puts you in touch with the issues surrounding it's use. If you want to buy things that are processed by technology and they were labelled, you could have the amounts taken of your index. Simple peasant peoples would fare very well under this type of scheme but industrialised peoples will undoubtedly suffer, some to the extent that they would become ill from the lack of protection that their allocation of environment afforded them. This type of index would very readiliy show the problems that man presents and they would also deter the use of environmentally unfriendly processes. I call this the Standard Human Emission Model and from it stems the Standard Human Emission Index. The SHEI is calculated by dividing the area of atmosphere at its outer edge by the population of the planet (average dissipation area) and this figure is divided by the overall emisssions produced on the planet. Because the resulting figure (the SHEI) is so tiny, it needs to me factorised in order for it to have 4 integers. This is a good tool for comparing data but it must be rembered that it is only a number and one that relates to the planet as a whole and that to be meaningful, national models should also exist. Clearly, this will never happen because it would reward people who had small carbon footprints and these people would tend to be further away from the growth area than governments need for the progress which they deem necessary.
See also Anatomy Of Decline, some notes I made on the subject and forecasting in general