Jobsworth's at work, inflating their positions.
Ba Humbug (to be very polite btw)

Are they going to be ready in time to enforce the EU air quality legislation. Could we put the Green Berries up against them

Granted it's not a very impressive start, but give them a chance guys. It's easy to take the piss but even this is a small step towards recognising that there are serious geopolitical consequences to climate change (maybe over-population next)

More green wash and hysteria

Well its a lot of hot air so it must do :)

Venturing onto dangerous ground here ST. I live with 3 redheads and have learned my lesson.

Not if one of them was Rebekah Wade!

(Steamy's going to ask who she is now.)

It's not so much what anyone would have them do, but what they'd be ABLE to do in the circumstances prevailing at a time when the whole world is falling apart because the reality of peak oil has hit home at last.

What are they going to do? Walk to the trouble-spot? Wait for the troublemakers to come to the grounded helicopter gunships?

Always biofuel, of course, if there's enough left over from feedstock for biomass electricity generation to keep the "peace-keepers" mobile.

Just finished reading the book recommended by 'adwindrum', John Micheal Greer's "The Long Descent", ( http://www.amazon.co.uk/Long-Descent-Users-Guide-Industrial/dp/0865716099 ) which discusses all the issues (although, actually, THE issue) which underlie my concern for the future, given the high-tech nature of the "solutions" advocated on here, which I think many will know I fundamentally disagree with, my definition of sustainable having a more sustainable core. It's a book worth reading. It should be compulsory reading for all the UN clowns making suggestions like the one that prompted this thread, because it might just introduce a touch of reality to discussions about what we should be doing to address our collective future.

The whole basis of UN intervention assumes there is a 'problem'. World population has been increasing, energy usage has been increasing at a greater rate, more people have access to clean drinking water, technology and trade make resources more accessible to more people, food is better distributed, international aid is becoming more effective. Where is the doomsday?
True for some individuals it is very rough with fatal consequences, but then so is a strange Norwegian dressed as a copper, lightening strike on a train or a bit to much heroin, but the world is getting better day by day.
I can hear the cries of 'it can't last', why can't it. Every minute of every day there is some humanitarian crisis that gets resolved. How many people here know of someone who has gone totally bankrupt, does that person vanish, cease to exists, no, society steps in and helps out that individual in almost all places in the world. It may not elevate them to their previous status, but they do not starve. So we already have a global economic system that is capable of working towards an energy decent plan (as the Transition people like to call it), so where is this problem that requires the UN?

Edit:
To control a nation you first have to totally crush them and their socio-political system. That way you get their respect. Not my opinion but that Italian fellow (can't remember his name but the book was 'The Prince') who wrote about it in the 16th or 17th century.

Machiavelli
Remembered

Ha ha. Nick, the Pollyanna Syndrome, by definition, acknowledges no limits - well, other than for arguments sake. It assumes business-as-usual in a world of diminishing resources.

It's not a Doomsday scenario involving cliffs and brick walls, rather one of downhill for the next two centuries so plenty of time to prepare - as long as we recognise that it's downhill from now on; that the reason for the acceleration isn't improved engine efficiency but one of those optical-illusion events when a downhill stretch LOOKS as if it's uphill. The "Wheeeeee" gradually taking on a slightly panicked note when reality kicks in and you find that the brakes aren't working.

Posted By: JoinerThe "Wheeeeee" gradually taking on a slightly panicked note when reality kicks in and you find that the brakes aren't working.

'Ninety miles an hour'
http://www.mp3lyrics.org/b/bob-dylan/ninety-miles-an-hour/

As for acknowledging limits, lets say , 'for arguements sake' that behavioural change can reduce fossil fuel by 30%, that has us at 70% of 1991 levels, simple technology i.e insulation can save 40% of that gets us to 42% of the 1991 levels, advanced technology i.e. smart metering, storage and electrical mass transport could save another 30%, that gets us to 30% of 1991 levels. That could drag out FF usage by a factor of 3 or we could substitute that with renewables.
Let us say that we double world population (another limit ), existing resources could last 1.5 times longer than current predictions. Renewables could be hard to implement at that level, but then with the population moving to cities and using that freed up rural land for renewables (no issue with turbine noise when there are no people there to whinge and whine) further savings , mainly heating/cooling and transport could reduce by 10% more.

So why must we assume that we are heading downhill from now on?
How is this going to help, even if it is in Green. Could they agree what shade of green, I propose Kawasaki Racing Green and British Racing Green, in stripes

ST -

"they distribute resources in the most effective way"
Effective for whom ? Certainly not the underfed billion, nor the 640 million without adequate shelter, nor the
400 million with no access to safe water. But maybe that's simply a management issue too ?

Posted By: Taigh CruinnEffective for whom

The market, as an entity, has no morals, it is also independent of any central control, so is in effect the will of all who enter into it at all levels. It is only when governments start to tinker and impose controls that it becomes unbalance. We all enter into the market place every time we do a transaction. This is not to be confused with the Stock Exchange, which is highly regulated. But on that note, a market can stand a small amount of inefficiency or control (local tax regimes, losses) without loosing the plot.
Oddly enough it is not always the obvious that exchanges at the highest rate, it is often the the second or third best that has the largest transaction value, therefore benefiting more people, this is what Game Theory, that John Nash managed to model so well, is all about.
Another thing bearing in mind when thinking about market places is that money is really only a token of time (or how long you have to work to make something so that you can swap it for something else). Also transactions may be instantaneous, but there is a time lag until benefits are seen. Imagine a farmer buying a plough, he is not going to see any benefits until he has ploughed his land and the crop has grown (hopefully a larger area of land for his time than not having a plough), which may be up to two years later.
Now do I want to see people suffer, of cause not, but I cannot see a better system, we have tried socialism, communism, cooperatives, trade quotas/embargoes, isolation policies, preferred trading partners, hoarding, none seem as good as a true market place.
An interesting scenario is happening with China and India becoming the manufacturing centres of the world, if they over supply, or under supply, then either the price drops to an unsustainable level and they have to stop manufacturing or the price rises until it is unattainable, the derivatives (not something I fully understand) such as energy prices are thus regulated by this consumer goods price elasticity. If they are not making they are not burning. An alternative way to look at this is that if customers in the West place a higher value on food, shelter, comfort and convenience they stop buying consumer goods (from Woolworths and Courts), this feeds back to the manufacturing that then feeds back to the derivatives such as energy prices. Try controlling that through fixed and rigid system and you end up with everyone having very little as there is no incentive to develop and produce improved goods, think on the Russian Automotive business from the 1960's until the every early 90's.

No, the market place wins every time, it is why it exists after thousands of years.