You've published a self-critical piece in the past, taking yourself to task for not doing enough. Perhaps it's time to acknowledge you have had an outsized role in getting this sentence written.
I don't always agree with you 100 percent, but you have done a ton. I appreciate this call to make the sentence meaningful through action as well.
"an agreement that included a sentence calling for "transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner."
…
What I’m trying to say is, today’s agreement is literally meaningless—and potentially meaningful. "
Yes. You are right, Bill.
It is meaningless as another call for Corporations and Politicians to make a different plan to make a different plan.
It is meaningful as a call for activism to pivot to the question of, How?
Specifically, How are we going to finance the design of this transition that is just, orderly and equitable.
Orderly is the operative word. This transition cannot be an exercise in Creative Destruction. The conflict that will be involved in the Destruction will be just as deadly to justice, oder and equity as inaction is.
It needs to be an exercise in prudent stewardship.
What institution exists today that is purpose-built for prudence, with the mission, the duty and the scale to exercise stewardship over the redesign and reconstruction of the global energy supply ecosystem, for energy sufficiency with habitat longevity and social equity?
There is only institution that fits this bill. The institution of Fiduciary Money. The tens of trillions in society's shared savings aggregated, collectively, worldwide, into social superfunds for the social purpose of provisioning the social goods of Workplace Pensions and Civil Society Endowments.
This institution is currently invisible to our common sense, hidden from view by Market professionals, who have "basically pushed out the attorneys from interpreting fiduciary duty" for this Fiduciary Money (Keith Johnson). When the attorneys got pushed out, so did accountability to our shared common sense, and loyalty of this institution to its institutional purpose of prudently replenishing its depletions to keep itself ongoing as a mutual aid society that is also a forever machine, constantly and consistently delivering an ever-present and evergreen confidence of security in the future to contractually qualified populations of contractually qualifying individuals, directly, that will also be, of necessity, a secure future for all of us, consequently.
We need a movement of common sense to push the attorneys back in, and push the Market professionals out, so we can return this Fiduciary Money to its true authentic purpose, and mobilize I it, true to purpose, to finance the redesign and reconfiguration of our global "energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner".
Money has been a culture-created "Magic Wand" for thousands of years -- and I sense there's magically modern ways to use it helpfully versus harmfully. Myself I sadly guess this "fiduciary-ism" revival would creep at a multi-century snail's pace -- and yet some say our civilization has hundreds of TRILLIONS of wealth waiting to give relief NOW. So I'm putting hopes in some explosive growth in the internet opening up worldwide "CROWDFUNDING" AND IF THAT DOESN'T WORK, I love the joke of dropping money out of helicopters -- and not just to the poor, drop some to the oil executives and ISIS and Hamas fanatics and Putin, with cheerful greeting cards telling them there's more where this came from if they become good little children as we all need to be.
Glad to see high-rank names I respect trying to do something -- Kerry at age 80, Colombia's new President Gustavo Petro, Bill McKibben of course -- and glad for this magic tool, the internet (gives me slight voice now in homeless shelter at age 78, having lost a decade-long tenant rights/animal rights battle). Beyond usual activism, I offer feeble outcry for re-purposing the post-Wright Brothers "Age Of Flying Machines" -- put rocketry for asteroid defense, put drones for planting TRILLIONS of trees, put air express to delivering world pandemic medications, put aerial firefighting in ultra-giant fleets to douse mega wildfires and also soak down urban heatwaves, and put airborne military capacities to mass airdrop supplies into places like Gaza or Tigray or Darfur and try the pure semi-madness of blocking totally mad war combatants by parachuting un-armed and suicide-equipped masses as volunteer "human shields" to protect both the maddened combatants and the imperiled civilians (and other life-forms necessary to a decent planet of overall ceasefire). Sure, that's my magical madness side speaking, but as one Earthling saying goes: "You Have To Be A Little Bit Crazy To Work Here".
Any efforts toward geoengineering should proceed with extreme caution. The unanticipated consequences of some of these interventions could be devastating.
Of course. Presuming otherwise is an insult to prudent moral scientists and engineers who have been deliberating the risks or taking various specific actions vs. doing nothing in this current situation.
COP 28 makes the case for extraordinary triage intervention to quickly begin limited time and regional controlled scientific research, testing and small scale deployment of all plausible means to #CoolTheArctic #RestoreOceans #CoolTheOceans #RestoreFisheries #RestoreWhales #SaveCorals 
Call it Ocean Pasture Restoration, Ocean Iron Restoration, Ocean Iron Fertilization, Marine Cloud Brightening, Albedo Enhancement, Albedo Restoration, Solar Radiation Management, or any other of dozens of techniques classified as geoengineering ...but it boils down to preservation of a dying patient (Mother Eaarth and us, her children) with time-buying triage (akin to tourniquets and CPR) while we take untold decades ramping up and winding down ... renewables and fossils, respectively.
The era of fossil fuels is over. Now it’s on those of us working outside of the cumbersome COP processes to do the urgent work needed to drive a just transition to the era of clean energy and climate-smart & resilient development.
On buses, I recall being tremendously impressed with George Monbiot's number crunching in Heat, where he showed how much more effective a fast bus network would be in reducing transportation emissions than any other conceivable option
COP28 was clearly a COP Out. The Arab hosts mocked the event using it to sell more fossil fuel in the background and got the group to endorse kicking the can into the next century. It was like watching the US Republican Congress pretending to govern using schoolyard taunts and public spectacles of brawls and obscene insults to ensure nothing substantive got done.
You've published a self-critical piece in the past, taking yourself to task for not doing enough. Perhaps it's time to acknowledge you have had an outsized role in getting this sentence written.
I don't always agree with you 100 percent, but you have done a ton. I appreciate this call to make the sentence meaningful through action as well.
"an agreement that included a sentence calling for "transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner."
…
What I’m trying to say is, today’s agreement is literally meaningless—and potentially meaningful. "
Yes. You are right, Bill.
It is meaningless as another call for Corporations and Politicians to make a different plan to make a different plan.
It is meaningful as a call for activism to pivot to the question of, How?
Specifically, How are we going to finance the design of this transition that is just, orderly and equitable.
Orderly is the operative word. This transition cannot be an exercise in Creative Destruction. The conflict that will be involved in the Destruction will be just as deadly to justice, oder and equity as inaction is.
It needs to be an exercise in prudent stewardship.
What institution exists today that is purpose-built for prudence, with the mission, the duty and the scale to exercise stewardship over the redesign and reconstruction of the global energy supply ecosystem, for energy sufficiency with habitat longevity and social equity?
There is only institution that fits this bill. The institution of Fiduciary Money. The tens of trillions in society's shared savings aggregated, collectively, worldwide, into social superfunds for the social purpose of provisioning the social goods of Workplace Pensions and Civil Society Endowments.
This institution is currently invisible to our common sense, hidden from view by Market professionals, who have "basically pushed out the attorneys from interpreting fiduciary duty" for this Fiduciary Money (Keith Johnson). When the attorneys got pushed out, so did accountability to our shared common sense, and loyalty of this institution to its institutional purpose of prudently replenishing its depletions to keep itself ongoing as a mutual aid society that is also a forever machine, constantly and consistently delivering an ever-present and evergreen confidence of security in the future to contractually qualified populations of contractually qualifying individuals, directly, that will also be, of necessity, a secure future for all of us, consequently.
We need a movement of common sense to push the attorneys back in, and push the Market professionals out, so we can return this Fiduciary Money to its true authentic purpose, and mobilize I it, true to purpose, to finance the redesign and reconfiguration of our global "energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner".
THAT is the true meaning of COP28!
Money has been a culture-created "Magic Wand" for thousands of years -- and I sense there's magically modern ways to use it helpfully versus harmfully. Myself I sadly guess this "fiduciary-ism" revival would creep at a multi-century snail's pace -- and yet some say our civilization has hundreds of TRILLIONS of wealth waiting to give relief NOW. So I'm putting hopes in some explosive growth in the internet opening up worldwide "CROWDFUNDING" AND IF THAT DOESN'T WORK, I love the joke of dropping money out of helicopters -- and not just to the poor, drop some to the oil executives and ISIS and Hamas fanatics and Putin, with cheerful greeting cards telling them there's more where this came from if they become good little children as we all need to be.
Glad to see high-rank names I respect trying to do something -- Kerry at age 80, Colombia's new President Gustavo Petro, Bill McKibben of course -- and glad for this magic tool, the internet (gives me slight voice now in homeless shelter at age 78, having lost a decade-long tenant rights/animal rights battle). Beyond usual activism, I offer feeble outcry for re-purposing the post-Wright Brothers "Age Of Flying Machines" -- put rocketry for asteroid defense, put drones for planting TRILLIONS of trees, put air express to delivering world pandemic medications, put aerial firefighting in ultra-giant fleets to douse mega wildfires and also soak down urban heatwaves, and put airborne military capacities to mass airdrop supplies into places like Gaza or Tigray or Darfur and try the pure semi-madness of blocking totally mad war combatants by parachuting un-armed and suicide-equipped masses as volunteer "human shields" to protect both the maddened combatants and the imperiled civilians (and other life-forms necessary to a decent planet of overall ceasefire). Sure, that's my magical madness side speaking, but as one Earthling saying goes: "You Have To Be A Little Bit Crazy To Work Here".
Thank you for keeping us informed and for helping to lead the fight for our future.
Any efforts toward geoengineering should proceed with extreme caution. The unanticipated consequences of some of these interventions could be devastating.
Of course. Presuming otherwise is an insult to prudent moral scientists and engineers who have been deliberating the risks or taking various specific actions vs. doing nothing in this current situation.
COP 28 makes the case for extraordinary triage intervention to quickly begin limited time and regional controlled scientific research, testing and small scale deployment of all plausible means to #CoolTheArctic #RestoreOceans #CoolTheOceans #RestoreFisheries #RestoreWhales #SaveCorals 
Call it Ocean Pasture Restoration, Ocean Iron Restoration, Ocean Iron Fertilization, Marine Cloud Brightening, Albedo Enhancement, Albedo Restoration, Solar Radiation Management, or any other of dozens of techniques classified as geoengineering ...but it boils down to preservation of a dying patient (Mother Eaarth and us, her children) with time-buying triage (akin to tourniquets and CPR) while we take untold decades ramping up and winding down ... renewables and fossils, respectively.
Beautiful ! ! !
The era of fossil fuels is over. Now it’s on those of us working outside of the cumbersome COP processes to do the urgent work needed to drive a just transition to the era of clean energy and climate-smart & resilient development.
On buses, I recall being tremendously impressed with George Monbiot's number crunching in Heat, where he showed how much more effective a fast bus network would be in reducing transportation emissions than any other conceivable option
Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.
Thanks for sharing this.
COP28 was clearly a COP Out. The Arab hosts mocked the event using it to sell more fossil fuel in the background and got the group to endorse kicking the can into the next century. It was like watching the US Republican Congress pretending to govern using schoolyard taunts and public spectacles of brawls and obscene insults to ensure nothing substantive got done.