A Question On Addressing Climate Change
A quick post based on a short segment I watched on CTV AM this morning – one of the authors of Superfreakonomics (there’s apparently one chapter on climate change) was interviewed and he asked the question (paraphrased),
Human kind has solved virtually every other problem that it has faced in the last couple of hundred years with technology, so why then is that approach (for example.. strategic seeding the atmosphere with the same material that is issued from volcanoes when they erupt as large eruptions tend to block the sun and cool the planet) considered so off the table in the climate change issue.
I am fully aware that, at this point anyway, the technology to address climate change issues that will be (in my opinion and in some cases) significantly decremental does not yet exist – however that does not mean to say, in the interests of discussion or even reason, that they are not either somewhere in development or, with necessity being the mother of invention, possible.
Is it not a question worth considering?
Why? / Why Not?
Sure, it is a possibility, a distinct one at that. Given the population growth projections that I have read lately, the question is can we as a species produce enough food and potable water to sustain 7 – 9 billion people without polluting the planet and atmosphere to the point where there is irreversible consequences. The test tube analogy is a good one, I think. Bacteria will multiply in a test tube with enough food until the test tube is completely full. It seems that mankind is on that same path. There is a breaking point. Have we reached it yet, or will we in the next 100 years? I don’t know but it seems prudent to either a) get the technology wagon going now; or b) reduce consumption and waste dramatically.
In the end, why bother with either approach?
The underlying problem is twofold, first: population growth, second: Consumerism. I’ve yet to see a solution to either that is ever going to be implemented. We’ve had the good life and others want it too. I cannot blame them and I really can not blame us either.
As for population, Treehugger is quite correct in his analogy. If tomorrow we had Zero Point energy(completely cleanenergy) and nanotechnology (the ability to convert one thing to another with no waste/toxic byproducts) Ask yourself which direction would population go? At what point are the returns diminishing?
If everyone has ALL their needs met, would population go down? I hope so.
Forced cooling will only mask the problem for a short time. Eventually even that won’t work.
I don’t think all or even a majority of technological solutions are off the table. Perhaps the guy’s pet technology, seeding the atmosphere, has been considered and rejected as unworkable. Other technologies are moving ahead. Advances in solar energy capacity and efficiancy are happening at a rapid pace. The idea of “artificial trees” that suck up CO2 is certainly a tech solution is being worked on and holds some promise.
Treehugger says we need to do one of two things “either a) get the technology wagon going now; or b) reduce consumption and waste dramatically. ” I say we need to do both.
Unfortunately, my cynicism is overtaking my idealism these days and even though we need to do both, we are doing neither to an adequate extent. That brings us to adaptation. As we adapt to a changed climate, technology will no doubt play a big role. It’s too late for technology or conservation to stop climate change. We can slow it down but real effective action is unlikely when a sizable portion of the planet’s population does not see AGW as believable… or sees mitigation as a threat to their profits and/or lifestyle.
JB
I believe the Futurama crew found the solution by dropping big ice cubes into the ocean. All you had to worry about was getting bigger and bigger ice cubes. The Superfreaks idea is almost as reasonable.
The major problems with the Superfreaks idea is twofold. The first being that seeding the atmosphere with major amounts of particulate matter has its own problems, some of which are just as bad if not worse than the warming problem it is supposedly supposed to be solving, not too mention we’re not exactly experts at modifying the climate. I mean, sure, we are modifying the climate already, but it wasn’t like we set out to do it intentionally on a global scale.
Second is what Robert said; the particulates would only mask the problem for a short time. The particulate cooling is a one-off effect that ends when the particulates fall out of the atmosphere, while the carbon effect is additive and would continue to build up, eventually overwhelming the particulate effect even if we continually seeded the atmosphere to try and keep the levels up.
Of course it’s a question worth considering, as part of a portfolio of research areas and possible policy options.
But what infuriates me is when people say things like this: “Human kind has solved virtually every other problem that it has faced in the last couple of hundred years with technology” they only mean technology *they* like. Why not technologies that replace/reduce fossil fuels, and policies which motivate the development of same?
For some reason, *those* technologies and policy options are completely off the table for people like this.
You are on a roll with the tough questions these days, SL. When you think of it, as a matter of natural science, it makes no more sense that the issue became ideological than H1N1, but it did and very quickly. It still is, as we are seeing this week with the leaked e-mails where one side is vigorously defending the questionable/shady and the other is wildly overstating their significance.
With due respect to PeterC, it is very Western to see AGW as an issue of excess consumerism and lifestyle. Ambivalence about material progress is bred in our bones and we are a few generations removed from understanding what real want is. Not so elsewhere. I imagine the source of Indian/Chinese/Russian opposition lies in their seeing it as an issue of poverty, and their definition of poverty isn’t not being able to afford Nike’s for the kids. It’s one thing to harangue middle America about (increasingly efficient) SUV’s and public transportation, quite another to tell an Indian pedicab driver he and his children should keep on peddling for the good of us all. Also, you can urge lower birthrates on people in many ways, but you can only expect them with even greater prosperity or enforce them with guns.
So sure, give the geeks and their widgets some well-funded workshops. “Change the climate? Can do!” If you don’t, and the predictions bear out, the world is going to go nuclear so fast it will give us all headaches.
Yes, we’ll find a technological fix. When the world’s poor were starving we came up with the Green Revolution, relying on mechanization and fertilizers to increase production. The world’s population burgeoned. Now we’re hitting the wall. All that fertilizer is exhausting the soil and we forgot about the massive amounts of water we needed to sustain that production – we’ve nearly drained the major aquifers. Our technological fixes have an astonishing tendency to come back and bite us on the arse.
The problem with these fixes is we’re using technology to supposedly remedy problems that arise from previous technological advances. That sounds pretty logical.
Read Gwynne Dyer’s discussion of geo-engineering in his new book “Climate Wars.” Basically one region’s salvation could trigger another region’s devastation. There is no global fix, merely interventions on a regional dimension. Just as the global warming problem will never be really universal (the West will be the least and last impacted), solutions, especially man made, will not be universal either.
Dyer, based on interviews with scientists and planners at the British Ministry of Defence and the Pentagon, suggests that there is a real risk of war, even nuclear war, from disputes between regions differently affected by geo-engineering.
Bear in mind also that global heating is but one of a number of potentially existential problems all of which need to be addressed simultaneously including deforestation, desertification, species migration and extinctions (particularly fisheries), overpopulation, resource depletion (think peak oil), freshwater exhaustion (emptying aquifers), drought, floods, air/soil/water contamination, nuclear proliferation and global terrorism.
Put all of those together and it becomes readily apparent that there are no meaningful technological fixes. We have to begin living differently if we’re going to continue living at all within anything we recognize as a modern civilization. As Jared Diamond points out in his book “Collapse,” it’s not enough to solve one or two of those problems. It’s not even enough to solve all but one or two of them. If we’re to solve any of them, we must solve them all. 19th Century capitalism, like it or not, has run its course. Those who want magic wand solutions are in denial of that inescapable reality.
The Superfreakonomics chapter on global warming has been panned pretty widely. Sure, technology might help, but I think small widespread solutions are better than big ones that create as many problems as they solve. For instance, every home with solar cells and a garden on the roof and maybe a small windmill; tied into the grid so you make money selling extra power to it instead of just paying for all your power. More market gardens and greenhouses near each city and less long-range transportation of tasteless mass-produced food. TVs powered by stationary bikes; you want to watch the game, work off those potato chips first. That kind of thing.
A few years ago some mid-level nerd from NASA came up with a scheme whereby millions of tiny computer-controlled mirrors would be shot into space to control solar heat. He insisted it was affordable. Of course, I have no idea whether such zaniness was grounded in sanity or not, but it was amusing to imagine the reactions of the deep ecologists.
MoS, sorry, you are just channelling Erlich/Club of Rome/Brundtland/peak oil/ nuclear winter, etc. thinking, not to mention Ecclesiastes. Profound, sagacious, compelling and wrong. Dwyer has made a career out of that kind of stuff and nobody seems to pay much attention as to whether anything he says pans out. Predicting the demise of capitalism is like predicting the descent of America into fascism: always imminent, never happens.
Holly:
TVs powered by stationary bikes; you want to watch the game, work off those potato chips first.
Are you trying to save the planet or advise new brides? I’m not sure you are ready for SL’s new team of upbeat messengers about AGW.
@Treehugger: How do we reduce consumption (and thus waste) to levels that will have any chance of mitigating climate change even within the lifetimes of our great-grandchildren?
How much are people actually willing to give up? And if the numbers of people who are willing to give things up is great why haven’t they already done so in great numbers?
Alternatives to what people purchase everyday that cause damage to the environment already exist – why are people not demanding more? When the consumer makes demands with their wallets in hand they are listened to – where is the demand?
@BJ: Don’t focus on that specific idea, it is only an example.
@Jonathan Dursi: Indeed why not – however even if we did turn off the fossil fuel taps tomorrow it would still take generations to make any significant inroads into turning around what has already started. It’s not like a light switch, since we cannot turn the change off what do we do in the interim?
@Holly Stick: Good ideas but who is gonna pay for that? I can count on exactly 2 fingers the number of friends I have who could afford to go solar/wind on a personal level.
Looks like we have been testing a version of this technique right across South Asia.
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2008/11/13/brown-clouds.html
If we could somehow stop it, we may well see the climate heat up as predicted by the IPCC.
Treehugger – I like to think of us as a wine yeast in that we will eventually choke in our own detritus.
Once we complete secondary fermentation, big G will lay us up in his cosmic wine cellar.
“…True, the photovoltaic solar panels that convert sunlight into electricity are still expensive and not as efficient as they could be, but the real reason Zero-Energy homes are expensive is because not enough people are building them. If developers decided to adopt this style of home for new subdivisions, the costs would instantly tumble as the volume increases. Builders don’t care what shape a house takes, it’s all about the cost of materials and time to construct…
…Building self-sufficient homes is an easy, win-win situation. No one loses jobs, no one gives up creature comforts and our carbon footprint goes down…”
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/quirks-blog/2009/11/efficient_homes_small_changes.html
Holly Stick
This is a version of the Trombe wall idea and the basis for my dream house from 30 years ago. I couldn’t realize that dream as things turned out but it seems to me to be one of the best ideas available to us.
My one caveat is the solar panels for electricity.
If one wants to be off grid then a large bank of batteries and inverters is required.
I have never found a study that includes these units in financial/pollution trade off calculations and there are many unsettling stories associated with the production of solar panels and batteries in developing countries.
Not to mention the waste disposal problems for us.
@stageleft – Good questions SL. I am just stating this matter of factly. There is no palatable way to reduce consumerism, I think. As supposedly the most intelligent form of life on the planet, we rely on a system that is based on “growth” that will lead us to our own dumb witted extinction. That’s the course we are on. It’s going to take some time to get there but we are well on our way.
@stageleft – Don’t focus on that specific idea, it is only an example.
An example of what? Really stupid ideas that have already been discussed and dismissed as being expensive, harmful, and counterproductive? The authors make it sound as though their ideas aren’t even allowed to be brought up or something, whereas the reality is the idea has been discussed and thrown out as being moronic. There is a reason that chapter got so widely panned after all.
Hey, I would love there to be some magic bullet to solve all of our climate problems to just magically appear from out of the ether, but there really isn’t any point in debating such an idea because it isn’t actually an idea, its just a hope or wish or some other manner of praying that somebody somewhere comes up with some magical way to do away with the problem so we can keep our heads stuck in the sand and not do anything ourselves.
All I can say about it is that the odds of such a magical Climate Change-ending technowonder actually coming about would be greatly increased if we actually took the problem seriously enough to actually encourage people to look for such solutions rather than pretending that because some of the current solutions don’t look easy enough right now, we shouldn’t be pursuing them any further and just wait until somebody comes up with a fully-formed super magic bullet before we actually try to change anything.
Necessity may be the mother of invention, but the groundwork still has to be laid before those inventions actually come about. I believe the cliched saying about that point is the “standing on the shoulders of giants” one.
While we may not be able to reduce consumerism, we can increase efficiency. A modern, efficient refrigerator keeps food cold as well or better than those built just 15 years ago but uses only about one-third as much energy.
We may not be able to convince everyone to give up private automobile ownership but we can increase the efficiency of available vehicles to reduce fuel consumption even as we put more vehicles on the road.
Sometimes things dovetail. For example, we know that beef production is an inefficient use of protein and energy inputs (e.g. it’s CO2 intensive.) We also know that a diet that includes more veggies and less beef is healthier. There can be a win-win in that: eat less beef, stay healthier, planet stays healthier. A healthy planet supports a healthy population.
@BJ: OK, fine, you didn’t like the example, it’s not the only one out there and I seriously doubt that there’s not a genius out there somewhere working on stuff we’ve never thought of.
I would suggest to you that given the state that many of us believe the planet to be in there is probably no idea that is pointless to debate just now….. but tell me, why, if there is such great concern over this from so many quarters so many of the concerned are, as I have said before, apparently willing only to do little more than wash their laundry in cold water, recycle a bit, sit around with candles during earth hour once a year, and call on their government and the international community to make them do something to address it?
I’ll ask the same question of you that I asked of Holly Stick (who avoided it completely), what are you personally willing to do or give up in aid of mitigating climate change? And if you haven’t yet done it – why not?
@JimBobby: Good examples JB, so where is over whelming demand for such things that will drive the market to produce them?
I’m reminded of Futurama’s take on all of this, where Global Warming was dealt with by dropping big blocks of interstellar ice into the ocean
Documentary Narrator: Of course, because the greenhouse gasses are still building up, it takes more and more ice each time, thus solving the problem once and for all.
Suzie: But…
Documentary Narrator: ONCE AND FOR ALL!!!
A technological solution may be possible, such as seeding clouds in the arctic as we used to do with hurricanes to try and rob them of their power. You could block out more sunlight that way, increase precipitation and possibly reverse the ice melt.
However, we’re trying to replace a complicated ecological system with very simplified tools. There’s no guarantee that the solution we pick won’t have side effects that could be just as bad, if not worse, than the problem we’re trying to fight. By and large, the Earth produced an environment that was conducive to our growth, and rather than replace that, it might take less effort, and be more effective in the long run, to reduce our impact on the environment, and let the environment take care of itself.
Failing that, the technology route is always open, but I think it may be a means of last resort. Our efforts are better spent finding technology that allows us to make our use of resources more efficient. This also has the benefit of not only addressing global climate change, but the issue of peak oil as well.
“I’ll ask the same question of you that I asked of Holly Stick (who avoided it completely), what are you personally willing to do or give up in aid of mitigating climate change? And if you haven’t yet done it – why not?”
Well, we’ve managed to replace a thirty-year-old fridge with a model that uses 1/6th the energy, and I’m willing to give up my car, once my youngest daughter can walk to school. Transit is improving here in Kitchener. It was already to the point where we could live car-free when we didn’t have kids, and I’m hoping we can do that again soon, even with two little ones.
Beyond that, I’d be interested in setting up solar shingles on my roof and maybe a wind turbine.
We are trying to buy local, and have taken up the task of cooking dishes from notakeout.com which, as the name implies, offers recipe ideas that can be prepared quickly after one quick trip to the store, thus saving you from having to eat fast food.
Good examples JB, so where is over whelming demand for such things that will drive the market to produce them?
Give peak oil issues enough time to develop, and we may see these changes. Back in 2008, before the recession dropped the price of oil, Americans actually drove less. Trucking companies found themselves in difficulty, but railways had one of their most profitable years in quite some time.
We could, of course, hasten things along with a shift in our tax burdens away from income-based taxation and more towards carbon-based/consumption-based taxation.
P.S. We have made the switch to wind power at our home, incidentally. We now buy our power through Bullfrog Power. The electricity still comes through the wires from Kitchener-Wilmot Hydro like normal, but we’re paying a top-up that covers the amount extra we’d pay for obtaining that energy through wind, with the money, of course, going to wind energy producers.
@stageleft –
I can’t speak for anyone beyond myself of course, but the reason I would like to see some government action on this is because, as you love to point out, is that very few people have the resources personally to do what needs to be done all on their own. I can’t build a more efficient car, or convert it to an alternative fuel, though there are people who have done so. Building a house like the one in Holly’s CBC link is certainly possible, but only if city regs and planning allow for it. And since you keep babbling about pocket book issues, it is the government that keeps throwing billions in subsidies and tax breaks to the oil and gas industries, not to mention ignoring their own environmental laws, which makes it that much harder for more environmentally-friendly alternatives to compete on a level playing field. And that goes for a lot of entrenched interests. Government also has a lot to say about whether or not mass transit is convenient and available, as well as whether neighbourhoods are friendly for the car-less as a matter of zoning.
Simply put, government, from the local to the federal level, has a lot of say in how efficient and clean society runs, so that is why I push to see some action on those levels.
As with JB, I’ve replaced a couple of appliances to gain greater energy efficiency. I’ve also redid the insulation and weather-stripping to avoid heat loss and upgraded the furnace and heat distribution. Also installed one of those automatic thermostats that lower the temp when you’re not around and such. Hell, I even make use of our long winters to save me the expense of running my deep freeze for several months out of the year.
I have also looked into the solar panels/wind turbines for power generation, but this is where having an existing building works against me compared to building a new one. The house is badly positioned to install solar panels, and the lot is not well shaped to give me the room for a wind tower (plus I’m uncertain if the city will allow one in any case). I have heard of some different designs that may work if I can just track them down. Research ongoing there.
Now, if I get the opportunity to build a new place, I know more than enough to install most of what I need upfront, as a friend of mine down south already has. In his case, he’s completely off-grid, but then he has a large enough track of land to do with as he likes. Much harder to do in a community, not to mention probably less efficient than having a communal power source. Of course, that brings us back to the government thing. While I can’t build a massive wind tower in the middle of town, I’d certainly be willing to fork over some cash to pay for such power generation somewhere nearby, but that requires considerable government involvement, whether I like it or not.
Oh, and I suppose I can soon start flying out of here on the more efficient Air Canada Jazz planes instead of the dirty old Northern airlines jets. (More efficient=more profit. Too bad more people didn’t figure that out.)
A point I’ve made before and which I heartily agree with, though SL seems to think that because the transition might not be completely painless is reason enough to shoot it down.
Well, I don’t think that question was aimed directly at me but I’ll answer anyways.
Like Jamesyboy Bow, I’m voluntarily paying a premium for every bit of electricity I use through Bullfrog. Ma has a store in our little town. The store’s on Bullfrog, too. Here at my shack, I got an upper apartment where my dear ol’ Mum lives. Itr’s on Bullfrog, too.
I’ve replaced all the old toilets with 1.6 litre models. That saves using town water. It requires energy to purify and distribute town water.
Mostly, I shovel snow. I’ve got long driveway and a fair bit of sidewalk and I’m 60 YO. I don’t own a snow blower but once in a while a friendly neighbour will blow my snow and I don’t chase ‘em off.
I use a manual push lawn mower to cut the grass. I don’t own a gas mower.
I’ve become very conscious of efficiency in tasks that require using a vehicle. My little burg is only Pop. 3000. Down the road 7 miles there’s a town of 15,000 where we get some supplies that we can’t find here in Mayberry. I never go to the big town unless I got 4 or more errands to do there.
Ma an’ me used to each have a vehicle. We got rid of one of ‘em 9 years ago. With some relatively easy scheduling, we make do with one vehicle quite nicely. That vehicle also does pickup and delivery for Ma’s business.
Over the past few years, we’ve replaced most of the windows in our ca 1880 frame shack. Still got a few to go but they’ll happen as we can afford it. Right now, we’re getting a new back door to the tune of about $2000 installed. The one and only reason we’re scrapping the original 1880 door is energy efficiency.
That’s probably a long enough list. I could go on ad nauseum.
As for when the genpop will massively adopt the measures like me an’ my treehuggin’ ecofreak friends of the earth? As soon as the price of energy dictates. When rising sea levels shut down a few dozen oceanside nuke plants and we quit throwing billions of public funds into tar sands, the price of energy will be going up dramatically. Peak oil.
JB
“I’ll ask the same question of you that I asked of Holly Stick (who avoided it completely), what are you personally willing to do or give up in aid of mitigating climate change? And if you haven’t yet done it – why not?”
I only fly in my private jet to really important parties once a month or so, where I wear evening gowns made of hemp only, and non-blood diamonds. The jet is fueled by biowaste, and it does the servants no harm to go without their supper once a month. My yacht is powered by wind only, and when it is in the dock, I employ the crew to pull my Rolls Royce, thus saving on gas; and the harness is made of hemp. And I flush my toilet less often.
@JimBobby: There was never any doubt about you JB, after meeting you earlier this year I have no difficulty in saying that your personal level of commitment to this issue is greater than the combined efforts of more than a few of us here.
@Holly Stick: I’m gonna take that to mean that you’re pretty well in the same boat as the majority then — yes?
stageleft, I grew up on a farm, with parents who both grew up on farms during the Great Depression. I have almost always had a low income, though enough for food, rent, etc. Therefore I naturally avoid wasting electricity, natural gas, gas, food, or anything else. Maybe I could do better, but I’ll bet my lifelong footprint is smaller than yours. And yes, I have been flushing less lately.
@Holly Stick: So did I and so did mine – I try avoid wastage as well, I could do better as well, your lifelong footprint is probably smaller than mine (I fly a lot) – but that doesn’t really answer the question.
Okay, guys…unzip, whip those carbon footprints out on the table, and let’s see who’s is the smallest.
Ahem. This may not be the most productive approach to the issue.
Yeah, plus you know how we fascistic denialists are prone to reactionary symbolic protests. If you two keep grossing us out like this, we may start flushing every five minutes even though nobody has gone.
Photo of a fascistic denialist:
http://drdawgsblawg.blogspot.com/2009/11/protocols-of-elders-of-climate-science.html
Aaarghh! She’s invoked a Cat on the Site of the Dawg! The Great Union of Opposites!
Ia! Iaaahhh! Shub-Niggurath! The Goat with a Thousand Young…..
Now to push us all over the edge, I call upon OTTERS!
http://eclectech.co.uk/mindcontrol.php
Bwahahahahahahah.
Hey, Holly, serious question. When you use the term “denialist”, what exactly do you claim is being denied? I assume anyone who questions warming trends since 1880 and complementary increases in carbon emissions would qualify, but beyond that, what are you referring to?
People who argue that the climate is not changing, against the evidence.
People who argue that the current climate change is not caused by human activity, against the evidence. (AGW is anthropogenic global warming.)
People who say that there has been no global warming since 1998, against the evidence.
People who will drag their feet against acceptiing AGW as long as they can, despite all the evidence for it, then turn around and say “Oh well, it’s too late to do anything about it now.”
Notice a trend? There is a mass of evidence that AGW is happening and will continue; people who deny the evidence without having any scientific basis for denying it, are denialists.
Here’s the latest update by a bunch of climate scientists, showing findings since the last IPCC report: http://www.copenhagendiagnosis.org/
Thanks. I understand 1, 3 & 4, and even 2 when it is expressed absolutely. But what of the scientist who says “yes, the climate is changing and carbon emissions have an effect, but I don’t believe it’s the major one. Other factors (e.g. solar) play a greater role.” In what way could he/she be said to be ignoring the evidence?
Big Tobacco played the “correlation is not causation” card for decades, but was finally defearted when studies comparing smokers and non-smokers became too conclusive to ignore. If the whole world smoked, I’m not sure we wouldn’t still be having the debate. With AGW, there is no parallel earth without greenhouse gases to compare to ours, so how can science even theoretically advance on this question given the chaotic complexity of climate
Because a scientist who has scientific evidence against AGW is able to publish her/his findings in a peer-reviewed scientific journal; where other scientists can evaluate it based on their own knowledge and experience. For instance, Richard Lindzen:
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Richard_S._Lindzen
Note his views on smoking and lung cancer.
Many of the people who were employed to deny the smoking-cancer link are also employed to deny AGW.
http://www.desmogblog.com/climate-deniers-take-tobacco-smoke
http://www.desmogblog.com/no-apology-is-owed-dr-s-fred-singer-and-none-will-be-forthcoming
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Hill_%26_Knowlton
Here’s an explanation of why global warming is probably not just natural variability.
http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/FAQ/wg1_faq-9.2.html
and about it being human-caused
http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/FAQ/wg1_faq-7.1.html
The sun cannot be the major factor in the past 40 years or so because while solar radiance has gone down at times, global temperatures did not drop correspondingly.:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming.htm
“Human kind has solved virtually every other problem that it has faced in the last couple of hundred years with technology”
Well, the two closest problems to climate change that I can think of, offhand, are acid rain and the hole in the ozone layer. We haven’t solved either of those problems yet entirely, but to the extent we have made progress it’s been via government intervention of the sort being pursued in Copenhagen.