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HOW DO WE EVALUATE ACTION ON CLIMATE EFFECTS?
- Collect unbiased observations of temperature, sea level and effects of extreme events over many years.
- Analyse climate data impartially to detect trends and all potential causes.
- Identify worst consequences of effects for people, fauna and flora.
- Consider most likely cause(s) of worst effects.
- Select verified mitigating and preventative actions.
- Obtain agreements and funding.
ALTERNATIVE METHOD
Skip steps 1-6, vilify benign CO2 emissions, exhaust supplies CH4, sabotage Australia’s coal industry, deplete scarce World oil, exact payments from electricity users, install renewable energy technologies that cause more warming than coal, prevent public debate, pretend that government is in control.
WHAT IS A FAIR PRICE FOR OIL?
Dairy farmers get a price for milk that is held down by oligopsony, agreement between a small number of buyers for their product. For stability of supply, the price has to recompense investment. Oil exporting countries get a price for oil that is held down by oligopsony, agreement between major oil importing companies. For stability of supply, the price has to recompense investment and also anticipate the depletion of petroleum resources with oil supply running out. For example, a higher price could be demanded to fund diversification into agriculture. Oil has varied per barrel between $20 in 1997, $160 in 2008, and $60 today.
Is the ethical position of companies buying oil different from supermarkets buying milk? Who will provide for oil exporters to transition away from oil when it runs out?
Novel ‘$hort of Love’ is about love set in the international oil industry, with some relationship and oil supply dilemmas considered in a satirical commodity framework.
CAN VULNERABILITY BE HEDGED?
The end of a relationship can bring uncertainty.
Individuals differ in how they respond to it.
Relief, worry about the future, even paralysis through fear of the unknown depends on their ‘tolerance’ for uncertainty.
A ‘vulnerability factor’ contributes most to anxiety disorders, according to Helen Thomson, ’The Agony of Waiting’, New Scientist, 19 October 2019, p43.
In the new satirical fiction novel “Short of Love” by Martin Knox, the central character Tom uses a commodity trading strategy ‘a straddle” to ‘hedge’ his vulnerability to love.
Will this ensure Tom’s tolerance for the uncertainty of love?
How can a think tank be creative?
It solves real problems by discourse between individuals with a wide range of complementary skills who explore boundaries and generate innovative ideas. The group dynamic is impersonal, objective, critical, non-competitive and mutual. The group may hone their creative interaction by recording proceedings and playing parts back to reinforce contexts leading to lightbulb insights.
In the political crime fiction novel Presumed Dead, crime reconstruction is performed by a think tank. https://wp.me/P1z4yo-n
