Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Obligatory ride sharing, less living space, more facility sharing, less ownership of goods, no car, far less privacy.
This is what 2030 could look like if we win the war on climate change
31 Oct 2019
Ida Auken Member of Parliament, Parliament of Denmark (Folketinget)By 2030, your CO2 emissions will be greatly reduced. Meat on your dinner table will be a rare sight. Water and the air you breathe will be cleaner and nature will be in recovery. The money in your wallet will be spent on being with family and friends, not on buying goods. Saving the climate involves huge change, but it could make us much happier at the same time.
Right now, we are losing the fight against climate change – but what would winning look like? What is life like in a green world?
Here’s one version of a “CO-topia”:
You walk out of your front door in the morning into a green and liveable city, where concrete has dwindled and green facades and parks are spreading. If you choose to call a car, an algorithm will calculate the smartest route for the vehicle and pick up a few other people on the way.
Since the city council’s ban on private cars in the city, lots of new mobility services have arrived. It is cheaper for you not to own your own car, which, in turn, reduces congestion so you arrive at your destination more easily and quickly and don’t have to spend time looking for somewhere to park. You can also choose to travel by bike, scooter or public transit.
The air you breathe in the city is cleaner because there are far fewer cars on the streets and the rest are electric – all electricity is green in fact. There is less noise and much more space for parks and pedestrian streets since all the parking space became available. For lunch you can choose from dozens of exciting meals – most of them are plant-based, so you eat more healthily and are more environmentally friendly than when lunch meant choosing between five types of burger.
Single-use plastics are a distant memory. You still grab a to-go coffee, but it comes in a reusable cup that you turn in at the next coffee shop to get your deposit back. The same system applies to plastic bottles and other take-away containers. At home, all of your household appliances have been turned into service contracts. If your dishwasher is about to break down, it is no longer your problem. The service provider already knows about the problem and has sent someone to fix it. When the machine no longer works, the provider picks up the old machine and installs a new one.
People are trying out new types of living arrangements with more shared functions and spaces. This means that more people can afford to live in cities. More houses are built with wood, which makes them nicer to live in and much better for the climate than concrete buildings.
When you buy something, you buy something that lasts; you buy it because you really need it and want to take care of it. But because you buy far fewer things, you can actually afford products of better quality and design. “Refuse, reuse, reduce, recycle” is the new way of looking at products: if you don’t need it, you refuse; if you buy it, you will use it again and again; and in the end, you recycle it. All packaging is made from three types of plastic or other new materials, so recycling is easier these days.
Agriculture has changed dramatically, as the new plant-based alternatives to meat and dairy products have made it harder for traditional animal-based products to compete. Much of the land formerly used to produce animal feedstock has become available. As people in cities have started to value going into nature, tourism, hunting and angling now offer new types of income for people living in rural areas. Forests and nature are again spreading across the globe. People travel more in their region and by train, so air traffic has started to decline. Most airlines have switched to electrofuels, biofuels or electricity.
Best of all, because citizens have stopped buying so much stuff, they have more money to spend on other things. This new disposable income is spent on services: cleaning, gardening, help with laundry, healthy and easy meals to cook, entertainment, experiences and fabulous new restaurants. All of these things give the average modern person more options and more free time to spend with their friends and families, working out, learning new skills, playing sports or making art – you name it and there’s more time to do it.
If we consider what the future could be, picking up the mantle against climate change may not seem so bad after all.
License and Republishing
Source: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/10/what-happens-if-we-beat-climate-change/
World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with our Terms of Use.
Written by
Ida Auken, Member of Parliament, Parliament of Denmark (Folketinget)
The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.
Lots of wood and recycled materials used for construction, more shared facilities, lower cost of residency, less use of electricity, no private car ownership and less private ownership of goods.
What author Ida Auken is describing is a slum or tent city.
Here’s a hint for you Ida; most people don’t choose to live this way, of their own free will.
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Sounds to me like the ‘modern person’ in this scenario may be the survivors of the cull of 6.7 billion people who are no longer with us.
By 2030, CO2 emissions will have increased greatly, especially in developing countries, but in developed ones as well, as the obvious foolishness of “green” energy will have been exposed some 7 or 8 years earlier. The IPCC will have long been disbanded, and only pockets of flat-earth types will still be haranguing us about “evil carbon fracking the planet”. There will have been a rebound economic effect of halting the foolish and entirely destructive war on climate, with economies mostly booming, especially in the US where the halt began much earlier, with Trump winning a 2nd term. Coal power will have increased, helping to spur economic growth, as well as an expansion in nuclear. Meanwhile, with CO2 increasing to perhaps 440 or even 450 ppm, plant growth will be spurred on even more. Climate-wise, there will have been a noticeable cooling, with some of the die-hard Climatards attempting to claim that this too being caused by CO2-driven “climate change”, but they will be mocked and ignored.
Bruce Cobb
God I hope you are right, honesty I would love to never hear of the u.n. ipcc, greta 😩 or crackhead people like Ocasio, fake’Pocahontas and the most vile, xr….
Sunny
Speaking of Buffy Ocasio Cortez.
Did she not release some comic book or cartoon that has many, and eerie, similarities to this Danish fool and her ecological ‘masturbatory dream?
The cartoon that told us of all the near religious and rapturous joy to be experienced by believers in The Green New Deal?
Why Buffy Cortez?
She who would Save The World from The Evil of Capital one trillion dollars of freebies at a time.
Sadly, I suspect there will be another world war before then on the back of another financial system crash.
These people are what they eat…N.U.T.S.
It’s staggering to come here day after day and read these things where otherwise intelligent people pontificate on destroying civilization for a theory that has multitudes of glaring deficiencies.
On a positive note a good friend I’ve been trying to slowly pull to sanity finally broke through and now at least thinks we need more info before doing anything rash. The truth may finally be getting it’s boots on!
The author is one of the rulers. You are one of the ruled. Sort of medieval, isn’t it? Western Civilisation seems to be on a rapid de-evolution to a form of retro aristocracy.
I have observed that “environmentalism” or “progressivism” is about as reactionary an ideology as has ever come down the pipe. This idiot from Denmark is the classic example, all the while preening and boasting about the supposedly great utopia that will just magically when they”win” the (mythical) battle against “climate change.” What this person describes is exactly what it is: a tent city, absent sufficient electricity to sustain even basic existence. They want to take us back to the Dark Ages, that period of chaos after the fall of Rome in which people suffered economically and politically. Plagues, wars, etc. Not a good scenario at all.
I read a theory somewhere (here?) that Western Civilisation has made the world so safe, that those with no common sense or survival skills (regardless of IQ measurements), are able to survive and reproduce. The result is we are devolving into a less competent and functional society.
Seems about right.
On a diminishing world IQ, Kornbluth’s “The Marching Morons” is a warning tale from the 1950’s. It’s a lot less ‘stupid’ than the movie “Idiocracy”. However, like Orwell’s books, it may very well be coming true!
My son and his girlfriend have just spent almost 3-weeks in Japan, and Taiwan. They have uploaded hundreds and hundreds of photos of all the delicious food they’ve been eating. And here’s a hint for all you Westerners who have been lectured about how ONLY Westerners eat meat … and especially RED meat … it’s all a LIE. The Eastern diet is JUST as meat-centric as the West’s. And beef abounds. Here’s another hint: the Eastern diet has NOT become “Westernized” … it’s ALWAYS been meat-centric. Because that’s the food which powers the human body and brain. You’ve all been LIED to about how the West are the only meat-eaters. Final hint: they don’t eat bugs either.
Thank you, Kenji, for that observation. The Japanese and Chinese eat a lot of pork, too, don’t they? Either way, it’s protein. And that is a good thing.
“ By 2030 – – You walk out of your front door in the morning into a green and liveable city, where concrete has dwindled and green facades and parks are spreading.”
By 2130 perhaps. Only if it is a new city.
In 10 years — 2030 — cities will look remarkable like they do today.
Sounds like “urban” nirvana of packed and stacked people isn’t quite the shangrila the urbanists envisioned. Hint: green facades wont help with the dehumanizing impacts of super high density living
“…of their own free will.”
Free will is to be abolished.
And the Conversation as well as a revamped totalitarian Consortium News -such a far cry from its founder’s call- is promoting the absolute free will abolitionnista:
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/11/07/misogyny-male-rage-the-words-men-use-to-describe-greta-thunberg/
“Best of all, because citizens have stopped buying so much stuff, they have more money to spend on other things.”
The only way citizens will buy less stuff is to limit cheap imports from coal-burning, CO2 spewing, low wage countries. W/o abundant and affordable energy, there will be no “money to spend on other things.” Doesn’t require a rocket scientist to figure this out.
If you don’t spend your money on stuff, what do you spend it on?
Don’t ask my wife that. She will say, clothes, handbags, wigs, shoes…I have nightmares about her shoes and handbags and wigs, there are so many! It’s no wonder we are skint!
So if I stop paying my bills, I will have more money to spend on other things. I’m not sure how that helps my personal situation, or the economy. It doesn’t look like a solution to anything.
Save it up and buy better and more durable stuff, save it for your future and 100s of other things that don’t end up as landfill a few seconds, minutes, weeks, months or years later.
Buying crappy life limited products wastes energy at every step of the process between the quarry and the landfill site.
Durable products on the other hand last a long time and can be repaired when parts do wear out, for example one well built washing machine that lasts 25 years will consume about one quarter the energy in manufacture of four life limited machines that only last about six rears before being replaced as they cannot be repaired.
Poverty: Scrounge to live. Save your junk, you may need it later.
Affluence: You can afford to waste things, you can always buy more.
Green fantasy: Be affluent, but recycle. That sounds good in theory, but it’s unnatural. Why would somebody spend extra time, money and effort to recycle? Because they are forced to, either by economic penalties or psychological ones.
“… they have more money to spend on other things.” Spot the logical error. If they’re not buying “stuff” nobody’s making it, so no jobs, including theirs!
Reusable cups….
It is the reusable straws I fear most. They are very difficult to clean, and I can see an entire nation struck down with a virulent disease spread by reusable straws.
Ralph
Don’t worry, one-time-use plastic bags became banned per November 1st 2019 in Germany. There will be a short period for the shops to use up current stuck though.
Yes. They were banned here in Australia last year IIRC. At the time I said “We’ll see the multi-use bags appear on streets and in bins heading for landfill” and sure enough, I see multi-use bags on the streets and in bins going to landfill. Another side effect is more people take home their shopping in the shopping trolley, which are left out on the street to be collected by a pickup towing a special trailer designed to carry many shopping trolleys. This happened before but now there is more.
The shopping cards (which are worth about US$ 85 apiece) have “wandered off” so much here in the US that many grocers have a buried electronic ‘trip wire’ around their property that if the cart rolled past the wheels will lock up.
Environmentalism from the roots is an anti-humanist ethic.
Sounds like “urban” nirvana of packed and stacked people isn’t quite the shangrila the urbanists envisioned. Hint: green facades wont help with the dehumanizing impacts of super high density living
It is worth than we thought:
Welcome to 2030. I own nothing, have no privacy, and life has never been better
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/11/shopping-i-can-t-really-remember-what-that-is/
…
First communication became digitized and free to everyone. Then, when clean energy became free, things started to move quickly. Transportation dropped dramatically in price. It made no sense for us to own cars anymore, because we could call a driverless vehicle or a flying car for longer journeys within minutes.
…
My bold.
When I was about five years old, I also had dreams like that.
If and when the new self-appointed elites start living the way they all urge us to live, I would be willing to look at what they are peddling. Until then, I will not even look at it, let alone go along with it…
2030 not likely, 2084 perhaps?
HR (and several others) are correct in that the key point is that the gov will _make_ people do these things. Many of the items listed can and probably will happen…but voluntarily and without force being used. For example, increased auto-drive rides and/or ride sharing will probably happen. Also, the purchase of ‘stuff’ is decreasing as ‘having stuff’ becomes less of a status symbol – for example, clothes, china, furniture, silverware.
I think that most people will want to live in the country and work remotely – but that houses will be more likely to be durable concrete instead of framed. They will probably have local produced power in areas where it is reasonable; solar in some climates local reactors in colder climes.
But this future will be the result of individuals each making their own decisions for their own purposes and the cumulative effect of those decisions will be the ‘future culture’. This is strongly opposed to a central committee enforcing edicts of what it has decided is ‘good’.
Janet, it is pseudo voluntary. On the face of it, it will look like GND/IdaDream and similar is voluntary.
However, and this gets a bit hard to digest for some. When prominent people like Ida Augen and AOC are serving their views with such rosy and dreamy words, it removes all rationality and skepticism in most of us, we all want to be supportive to the society. Many of us dream of a society that in principle resembles “Star Trek, The Next Generation”. During the 1930’s the German government build miles long five storage hotel rows along the coast and invited “the common people” to have holiday there. When families came there in the thousands, what they got was mainly adjustment to the society that the government preferred. As far as I remember a few hotels have been left in ruins for everyone to see. The people back then were in good faith, just like a lot of us have good faith today in the same sweet promises and threats by Ida, AOC and Greta.
If people want to go the Ida/AOC way, that is how it shall be, but the officials must put all the cards on the table in a cost/benefit/objective manner and the press has to cover the aspects from left to right, giving people a serious understanding of what they vote for.
It is first af I have become a pensioner, that I could write and speak to friend and the public with my skeptic view. The same goes for many, if not most here on WUWT. What that means is that people will almost only see, hear and read opinions in parallel with Agenda21.
So no, in a real sense people do not voluntarily chose their destiny entirely – I think.
Hi Carl,
I puzzled over this:
“build miles long five storage hotel rows along the coast….”
I think you mean “five story”
Thanks, yes 🙂
“Five storage”? Have you SEEN pictures of the ‘resorts’ that Hitler had built along the Baltic coast?
In no way do I suggest that we conform to PC expectations. What I am saying is that many of the end-points cited in the article are things that I expect people to choose; some are not. It is not the list of end-points that should concern us, but the manner in which these goals are proposed to be forced down our throats instead of offered as viable options for individual selection.
The listed items do not matter. The political mechanism does.
Jan
Ah, totally agree. And to be all honest, I think Associated Press is most to blame as indicated in:
Journalism’s Contribution to the Rise of Climate Alarm
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/07/12/journalisms-contribution-to-the-rise-of-climate-alarm/
Which is why I often prefer additional info from RT, FOX, etc.
Interresting. The wealthy buy privacy even now; have been doing that for ever.
They keep shoving articles about how great “Tiny Houses” are down our throats. About how people really really want to live in one.
I get the feeling they are trying to talk us into them. If they can’t talk us into them we’ll end up there anyway.
Ms. Auken apparently comes from Frederiksberg, an affluent part of Copenhagen. I wonder how much it resembles the fabled COtopia, and if she sees herself moving there.
“less private ownership of goods.”
That means to me more landlords except they won’t be renting housing, they’ll be renting household items.
The math tells me that a dollar a month profit on a single stove rental times how ever many people in
a given CO2opia could be some serious profit.
– I see why this issue is so backed by rich people.
Where would the money in our pockets come from ? No jobs, no deliveries because Lorries are banned, no food because tractors are banned, no heating because not enough energy on the grid, no roads because tarmac, concrete stone are banned
No no and more NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!
It sounds like nothing more than someone starting with a socialist/medievalist fantasy and then trying to use climate to justify it, with a heaping gob of “damit people do what I want” slathered all over it.
It also reminds me of Demolition Man, a bit.
In addition, if more people are hunting and fishing, why is there less meat? I mean, I can understand why people are hunting and fishing since INGSOC has banned commercial ranching, apparently.
The fantasy of central planners always looks so much better than the consequences, has anyone else noticed that? ALWAYS.
Mother Earth’s real tragedy isn’t the CO2 that wants to warm the earth but the pesky little humans that want to take over command and control of the earth.
https://tambonthongchai.com/2010/05/16/171/