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Peoples Representation: One Voice
Each voice counts: many voices get noticed
We each need freedom to experiment to rediscover our environment in order to get involved.
Villages as businesses: developing environmental ecotourism
Forward
The author is grateful to be invited to comment on the COP28 proceedings as an individual with one
voice, in response to Guest of Honour Prof Dr Benno Werlen, summarising contributors closing
ceremony, with David Ko Co-founder of Rethinking Choices, Richard Busellato, Ingrid Mette Co-founder WCS World Climate School, Sadaf Khalid Khan Global Coordinator Its4u COP28 Dubai and Isaiah Kaaka President EACCGN, the main organisers of Its4u COP28 Dubai Virtual Conference.
By providing some constructive notes about the economic social and environmental priorities, the author hopes to win hearts and minds and help broaden engagement with green development in more practical ways individually and collectively, to help tackle the pressing problems concerning the changing climate and how it affects the community, economy, food water and energy provision - by land, sea and air.
Abstract
Changes in the monopolistic way we operate business, society and commerce “top-down" is urgently required and transitioning through individual and community initiatives, “bottom-up".
Our built and urban environments will be transformed as we prepare for a less certain future, where support from the weather and stable climate can no longer be taken for granted.
A return to basics in land management, agriculture, water conservation and food production,
combined with ecotourism will pave the way for a more distributed, resilient but also more inclusive means of production.
We also need to redouble our efforts at environmental conservation, restoration and electrification as we transition away from burning oil coal wood and gas. If our governments and the OGI energy monopoly don’t respond in time, geoengineering will be required, with more drastic restrictions placed on movement, including living under glass.
In addition to local initiatives, land, sea and air-based countermeasures will be required, where
governments and corporations can and must play a greater role. Please also refer to [13] which is in general agreement about the necessity of adopting additional geoengineering measures. People power counts – we have a far greater influence as consumers on market development
through the choices we make than we realise. It is also unjust that the privileged major environmental polluters won’t pay the price of climate change.
Introduction
Land
There are multiple ways a community in a developing country can adapt to the changing climate.
Here’s a simple list:
Cover up bare ground with greenery
Capture as much rainwater as you can using channels, micro-dams and extensive greening
Make use of shade air currents and moisture for evaporative cooling
Use your roofing to collect rain and energy, and also to provide partial shade for livestock and crops
Preserve local and traditional agriculture, adopt companion planting, reduce soil tilling and use
mycelium to avoid the use of herbicides and pesticides to preserve local biodiversity and soil culture
Your home and community need to form a power station aka microgrid, not become the clients of big industry.
Develop local ecotourism by adopting these measures
Deploy horticulture, urban farms
Make use of solar electricity for fan-assisted cooling, transport and pumping
Compost household and other biowaste
Use a composting toilet
Form community networks using mobile and smartphones to promote the market and inform with a circular economy, with the addition of an anaerobic digester
Individual initiatives on the ground count more than government promises in getting initiatives started, but having both is seen as vitally important.
Such government initiatives include providing seawater desalination and freshwater canal pipelines and aqueducts taking water far inland, which will be required on a very large scale as civic megaprojects, and some form of geoengineering, best funded by billionaires.
This all shouldn’t really come as a surprise, as most successful business enterprises start in garages and sheds, run by individuals and small teams.
The cumulative restoration efforts of communities, supported by the joined-up government will be rewarded by the return of more frequent rainfall and increased water table levels. Heat pumps EVs and rooftop solar power developments have been given a poor press (discredited) with untruths spread in social media by powerful vested interests driving scientific and technical research and development.
The flooding of land comes from the accelerated melting of spring meltwater. Reducing GHGs and covering land surfaces with greening including tree-planting of slopes adding micro-dams and geoengineering are known preventative measure.
Air
The focus is on reducing atmospheric CO2 levels produced by continuing to burn oil coal and gas, aka “CO2 tunnel vision” is, given the centuries-long persistence of this excess greenhouse gas aka GHG in the higher atmosphere, not going to produce the desired effects within the next 5-11 decades [11].
Atmospheric CO2 GHG removal by artificial means is energy-hungry and not very practical, except at source. However, ramping up greening and afforestation coupled with ceasing burning oil and gas will be, if we act decisively in time. The window of opportunity for doing this is closing fast.
Alternatively, the use of geoengineering in the upper atmosphere using reflective sulphur
compounds, CO2 sorbers like lime and KOH in jet contrails will be required, which are currently
unpopular with electorates. The amounts required annually would match the output of the global
fertiliser industry. As the alkaline Sorber particulates reach the sea in rain, they neutralise the acidic carbonium ions and help rebalance the pH of the oceans [12].
Aviation, the principal emitter of stratospheric CO2, will require extensive electrification, especially for long-haul flights above the turbulent weather. CO2 has persisted in the higher atmosphere for many centuries.
Atmospheric air comprises a mixture of oxygen 21%, nitrogen 78%, argon 1%, carbon dioxide 218
ppm in pre-industrial times, also including trace micro-particulates of pollen, water vapour, volcanic
dust emitted from the sea, forests, soil, volcanoes, ash from fires and greenery.
Polluting greenhouse gas GHG mixtures including micro-particulates (including smog) are “highly
miscible”, so the whole planet’s atmosphere is affected [8] transporting.
GHGs include gas mixtures of the oxides of nitrogen NOXs, of carbon CO, with CO2 currently at 420
ppm and rising, methane CH4, ozone-depleting refrigerants HFCs, water vapour H2O and said micro-particulates as suspensions including soot, ash and pathogens also carried in and on micro-plastics.
Sea
The oceans will require the removal and prevention of plastic and toxin pollution at source through
comprehensive drain river and effluent filtering and sewage processing in order to prevent the dieback sink as well as a source of food. Without plankton, the food cycle for fish and other creatures higher up the food chain is destroyed. The rain has become acidified by the raised atmospheric CO2 levels [3] causing the plankton shells to dissolve.
The use of processed (heated) heavy fuel oils and the waste they produce used in marine diesel
engines at sea is also highly toxic to marine life. Ship electrification and the use of methyl alcohol are
far greener alternatives [4].
Green economic development with community growth in the form of ecotourism, maintaining
forest and food security, maintaining and promoting the water cycle, urban cooling, farms,
increasing biodiversity and changes to increase circular economic practices (recycling) can provide
greater short-term benefits to communities in Africa.
We can’t escape pollution and climate change just by changing our location: everything we do
is connected through nature in ecosystems, with gas air and water fluid mixing occurring pole-to-
pole on a planetary scale within a year (NASA) [8].
The political act of NIMBYISM and the application of physics and “inorganic" chemistry to climate change can’t be reconciled “socially” by more segregation, more division, nor “chemically” through more mono-cropping, deforestation and widespread soil sterilisation through the application of pesticides and herbicides.
The ‘OK, but not in my backyard’ principle doesn’t apply to fluids.
The ‘welcome to our backyards’ ecotourism village approach by contrast however is a win-win
formula for Africa and more [6].
Diversifying land use brings multiple benefits to include the existing populations and tribal villages
including foreign income vital for development. This extends into biodiversity, land management,
preserving social cohesion through the maintenance of traditional culture, the art of doing and seed
markets. A successful investable country however also requires corruption to be actively minimised
(IMF).
Avoiding building on flood planes and providing drainage requirements can reduce inconvenience
to some here in the UK for example, but then most of our global populations live in cities just a
metre or two above sea levels which are rising, as are their foundations sinking as the underlying
water tables are depleted and sea levels rise from the polar melt. Surface drainage reduction,
wastewater recycling and run-off rainwater storage are seen as vital for the maintenance of
greenery, crops and people during periods of summer drought, maintaining the water table.
Water and pollutants
Water also spreads pollutants by pummelling and grinding from mixing currents in our rivers and
oceans and sand where they are eventually released into our air and freshwater by the water cycle.
Further pollutant sources identified include rubber particulates from vehicle tyres and plastic waste
flushed and disposed of at sea being pummelled into micro particulates by the hydraulic abrasion of
sea water, waves, wind sand and rock. The smaller particulates float and become airborne through
the action of wind and waves, carrying the still unprocessed waste toxins and pathogens.
Truth Vs. Counter Truths: Controlling the Narrative
In Science, there has been much development driven by industrial production and profit in the drive
for growth (energy, transportation, construction, pharmaceuticals, digitalisation and automation).
However, the environmental sciences including renewables have not received the levels of funding
required to tackle climate change to date, with renewables attracting a tiny fraction of the OGI R&D
budget.
The sciences also embrace the “empirical method" [7], which includes an evidence-based
system of doubting the truth through “divide and conquer” methods until proven otherwise and
peer-reviewed.
The way of moving past this difference of opinions and monopolistic deadlock of vested interests will involve changing the narrative as described: we know that our atmosphere is a beauty to be
marvelled at, but it is paper-thin and fragile when viewed from space, and that maintaining its air quality is going to play a vital role in securing all our futures. Education and environmental awareness can however be awakened through the Arts. We urgently need to look beyond the “empirical model" so espoused by contemporary economics whilst maintaining the peace.
Social Factors
Society, Democracy, Empathy and Consensus-building.
Winning hearts and minds requires practical involvement, aka co-construction.
Practical ideas and activity are key and learning through successes as well as mistakes creates
involvement!
There is so much we can do through the choices we make as consumers, as individuals and in society to break the vicious cycle of plastics, pollutants, pathogens and ghg emissions creating global warming.
For example, just tending a vegetable garden has opened up many avenues of personal interest
concerning encouraging ecosystem diversity, composting, green housing and avoiding using
pesticides and pest infestations. Individual enthusiasm is also very infectious, so just imagine how
one billion engaged voices could transform our land, air and sea!
We’ve tended the land before, in the UK it involved commandeering every free bit of land and
labour to grow fruit and vegetables and keep livestock like chickens and sheep to eat during WW2.
Two centuries further back, we had a rural economy, prior to the industrial revolution.
The rhetoric doesn’t always match the action on the ground. It’s what people do that counts, not
what they say. Farmers are passionate about their work, yet support for experimental farming
initiatives is limited, constrained again by commercial practises and price-conscious supermarkets,
yet they make great sacrifices and are highly dedicated. Common agricultural policies in continental
blocks may also hinder progress towards more sustainable agricultural practices, where centralised
control by dictate has become the norm.
The migration of the population from the land into the cities en mass has resulted in a falling
engagement with the environment and, yes, playing in the dirt through rough and tumble by our
youngsters have also been discouraged by a combination of technology, domestic hygeinism and siloes created in the social collective eg. the protective, segregated school run, which when combined with poor diet and exacerbated by ultra-processed food is creating a generation of physically disengaged, physically inactive youth.
We’re also starting to realise the benefits of diversity (ecosystems) in land use and agriculture: agri-
solar, co-agriculture, companion planting and urban green roofs serve as examples.
Mono-cropping is resulting in increased fires, biodiversity loss and drought, brought on by industrial
agriculture.
The importance of water and maintenance of the water cycle through greening in the provision
of irrigation is also being realised. Draining the water table in forests for urban one-way use has also
exacerbated the fallout from forest fires globally, releasing record levels of greenhouse gasses whilst flushing under-utilised water out to sea.
Ice caps Sea levels
Ecosystem greening initiatives related to atmosphere management the Moors and water
management. When the Moors built the Alhambra in Granada, they created a raised fortress above
a spring in the city with fountains and greenery to cool the air, vegetable gardens and open buildings
comprising cool stone and terracotta alcoves.
The Muslim art of mathematics included working with nature, with environmental awareness
Tribal stories, storytellers, narratives, and truth through engagement can be engaged creatively.
Art of involvement – democracy and consensual co-construction (EDI initiatives) allowing people the
individual freedom to experiment and construct.
A story about air quality management and the abandoning of high-rise buildings to return to street
level
The 1.5C industrial increase in global warming
The bottom line of 420ppm atmospheric CO2 and counting is still too high
Commonsense, art and science Sometimes science has to express mathematical concepts – also valid (true)
The need to cover up exposed earth and concrete
Sustainable concrete development using hemp and other fibres
Lithium recycling – only 5% of lithium batteries are recycled globally which requires urgent action to
reduce labour exploitation eg. Colton mining by child labour in the DRC.
Entropy and Enthalpy
Entropy
Moving away from burning (heating) to constructing (cooling).
Increasing entropy
Loss of information through spreading untruths (increasing chaos)
Philosophical insight into questioning experts to introduce doubt
Enthalpy
Global warming can be seen as a planetary-scale heat management thermodynamic system (like an
automobile with an IC engine running with radiator cooling) [4].
When there is a fault with the thermostat, cooling flow or insufficient coolant, the automobile IC engine gets hotter and hotter until it seizes. The temperature gauge however warns if the water pump or fan belt fails allowing the driver to slow down or stop to prevent more severe damage.
The author’s declaration of altruistic personal interest:
Having read and researched multiple related subjects as a post-graduate including human factors
and engineering design, as a practised teacher, having read industrial chemistry, information
technology and as a published researcher including automotive driver vision and seating design,
equality diversity and inclusion, aerospace inventor and patentee and currently working in a
voluntary capacity with TiiQu.com, a pioneer of online truth technology [Truthtech], he writes frequently as a contributor to LinkedIn on environmental, design engineering ideas and climate concerns. He also helps to run a vegetable garden at home, being part-retired. His interests also include business
development, internationalism, languages, culture, ideas, invention and problem-solving.
Nicholas P Robinson,
B.Sc(Hons), IEEE (lapsed), Beverley, UK
References
action
[3] GOES foundation, Edinburgh University, UK https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Howard-
Dryden
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