Paul Mason is a big traveler as we find out from the first page of chapter 9. He is a curious person, asking people with different backgrounds questions about their economy, but instead getting answers about the climate change.He writes about the relationship between the two almost interchangeably, seems to be one of the ways he rationalizes the issues that face us all. You can't talk about money without talking about climate or vice-versa.
P. Mason paints a picture the seemingly eternal conflict between ecologists and economists.
Mason is pulling references from IPCC, IEA to J.Ashton. Shows a well researched individual who concerned with accuracy and facts in order to rationalize his views. He is in a way an explorer or investigator, exploring the relationship between economics and ecology and investigating the impact on local cultures and economies. He writes with purpose and deliberation.
His book reads more like a documentary. He writes this chapter into the book at this stage on purpose, as a way of making us aware of the importance of the underlining issues. It's almost like watching Sir David Attenborough's documentaries about Planet Earth.
Paul Mason talks about the Gobi desert, The Himalayas that walls off the Gobi desert and while he didn't mention this next fact, The Himalayas captures all the moisture on its slopes and that acts has a natural impact on the delicate climate and is the main cause for the Gobi deserts existence. The Himalayas are still growing and with it, rising temperatures, and the dying grassland that so essential for sheep farmers in Ningxia Province, China won't be able to grow.
P.M. has an opinion - he gives a grim view of the possible future, how industrial society effects the natural ecological and climate balance. 'if climate change is real, capitalism is finished and the economic world of those who hold the power could be destroyed.'
Again and again through the chapter he is reinforcing his experiences around the world with facts and pointing it out if we don't act now -probably we are already too late —you can read between the lines—we are doomed and humanity itself could very well be the architects of our own demise.
Its a vicious circle we live in. What might be good for economy in short term is bad for our climate. We receive wrong market signals, the dropping oil prices instigated by Saudi Arabia, makes us buy more cars and drive more miles.
P.M indicates in between the lines the beginning of the end if (by 2050) we haven't achieved the goals set out in order to keep our climate under control, his message is loud and clear. The market stands in the way of the climate change and the market mechanisms are clearly inadequate and have failed.
The connection Paul sees between WWII and the COP's future meeting - that will be held in December 2015 - Is he indicating this seems like its leading us to another World War? Certainly feels like it these days.The idea of a centralized governmental control to meet the critical emissions targets might sound great, quite ideological. But can we really trust the governments to take over and allocate fairly - like in Hungary they did for 40 years, as I felt it on my own skin-doesn't work.
Mason's political background as a former member of the Trotskyist Workers' Power group lights through. Communist ideologies sounds great on paper until you introduce greedy and corrupt people to this equation.
A Demographic Time-bomb - demographic aging is another (new) problem and nobody protest against it even though potentially as a big external shock as climate change.
P.M believes falling birth rates in the rich world and western women independence makes this imbalance irreversible.What a sexist comment. The economy and rising prices that makes us rethink to have kids in the first place.
Paul Mason is trying to look at the bigger picture, he steps back as if admiring a painting in a museum. While looking at different issues, Paul's views which are formed from elegant investigation into problems like impact of migration, ecology, economy, population and state responsibility, simply do not do enough to point out it would take a massive re-education of peoples mentalities and the way we all live our lives in this industrialized society. This is the biggest hurdle and its certainly not achievable in 30 years.
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