Paying lip service to dangerous mantras

Prof Corinne Le Quere.

The idea that “every little bit helps” is a dangerous mantra when it comes to climate change abatement.

Those “every little bit” comments are, according to a story published in The Guardian, really just paying lip service to avoiding catastrophic climate change.

A major two-day London conference at the Royal Society headquarters this week it became clear that “every little bit helps” is a dangerously misleading mantra when it comes to mitigating climate change.

The organizers, Professors Kevin Anderson and Corinne Le Quere of the Tyndall Centre – posed contributors a brutally simple question: what would need to happen if we were to do more than simply pay lip service to the idea of avoiding dangerous climate change?

The Guardian in its story headed: “’Every little helps’ is a dangerous mantra for climate change” said the answers to the question about avoiding dangerous climate change were radical, but none mentioned re-using plastic bags.

The clear message from the conference, it was reported, was unrestrained capitalism was incompatible with decarbonisation: the sums simply don’t add up.