Climate Change and Mark Carney

Mark Carney: One of Canadas boldest and brightest exports, Bank of England Governor Mark Carney, said it quietly last week in a World Bank seminar that went largely unnoticed. It was reported by Jon Hay of emergingmarkets.org and re-reported in the section of the Guardian but it wasnt a homepage headline for mainstream websites. This is puzzling, especially since readers may have children who are going to have a very difficult time of it when Carney, who has four daughters, is proved right, according to The Toronto Star, Canada. The problem is that if those reserves are burned, the world will see catastrophic climate change. I could refer to our smugness about this as cognitive dissonance but prefer the paint-job metaphor because its more tactile. How are we going to get out of the planets increasingly hot smelly room as it grows tinier? We wont and The world is painting itself into a corner with its extraction and use of fossil fuels. Although the phrase oil reserves may sound comforting, burning all the carbon that humans have discovered and banked for extraction might well end our civilization. Most climate change and fossil fuel experts know this but who dares say it aloud? Carney was saying what Naomi Klein has written in her great new present-and-future on climate change , This Changes Everything . Fossil fuel companies have uncovered massive oil, gas and coal reserves, laid claim to them and reassured their boards, managers and stockholders that the profits will flow in. This is capitalism at its energetic best, and worst. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.