Policy maker

What can I do as a policy maker to stop the global warming? As a policy maker you have a crucial role in stopping the climate crisis. The necessary transition affects how cities and societies are planned, the different infrastructures for transports, energy, food supply, nutrient cycles, waste etc. This will also have many positive effects on our lives with cleaner air, higher quality of food, a richer social life and healthier people. We have an opportunity to leave a better place to live in to our children and future generations.

You are most likely already addressing several of these problems. But we need to speed up the transition. Since the usage of fossil fuels are deeply integrated into our society, many different areas need to be addressed simultaneously. This action list suggests where attention is needed to make this happen in a coordinated way with citizens and other stakeholders such as city mayors and enterprise leaders. Don’t hesitate – take a lead in this! You will not regret it and people will thank you.

  • Turn the energy production to a fossil free sector (why? how?)
  • Introduce benefits for fossil free heating/cooling of premises (why? how?)
  • Introduce benefits for fossil free transportation to make it the first choice alternative (why? how?)
  • Speed up the transition from fossil based energy to renewable energy (why? how?)

  • Create policies beneficial for organic and vegetarian food production (why? how?)
  • Stimulate local markets (why? how?)

  • Promote new values in the society beyond the traditional growth (why? how?)
  • Promote usage of quality products with long lifetime in all sectors (why? how?)
  • Build awareness of resilience and sustainability in the society (why? how?)

  • Stimulate R&D and investments in green technology (why? how?)
  • Establish a tribunal for companies who have put their own interests before the climate of our planet (why? how?)
  • Network with other policy makers nationally and internationally to facilitate and find cooperation in reaching the above tasks (why? how?)

The above twelve actions will stop further global warming. The below three actions is the best way to recover from the changed climate. One of the main reasons our blue and green planet Earth is habitable for life, with a nice climate compared to our neighboring planets Mars and Venus in the solar system, is actually life itself. The myriad of lifeforms in different ecosystems, on land and in sea, they smoothen out extreme temperatures and they smoothen out the rainfall so that it rains more regularly but less hard each time. So by taking use of the nature, it should be possible to get back the nicer climate and weather we used to have just 70 years ago.

  • Help preserve a healthy sea (why? how?)
  • Take care of existing forests, plant new forests (why? how?)
  • Make agriculture more sustainable (why? how?)


When all of us are moving in the same direction, the climate and the future of our kids will be saved in a surprisingly short time. Use the action list as input in your work, engage your staff, find out more, and let others know what you are doing. Calculate your carbon footprint to get some numbers on where you are personally. We are all in this together. You find some more background and links for further reading.

“It always seems impossible until it is done.”
                                    -Nelson Mandela

“The BIGGEST mistake is thinking someone else will save our climate.”
                                    -Unknown


It's about the future of our children and their childrenIt’s about my future heart

“Earth is not a gift from our forefathers,
but a legacy to our children.”
                                    -Ancient Indian proverb

Why?

  • The oceans are more important to a healthy planet than most of us realize. So far, they have stabilized the climate by buffering much of the excessive heat from the global warming, and they have stored more than half of the carbon dioxide (CO2) that we have released into the atmosphere when burning fossil fuels.
  • The algae in the oceans could potentially remove more of the CO2 from the atmosphere than all trees and plants on land combined. That is, algae can potentially save us from the excessive CO2 we have released into the atmosphere. This means algae might be one of the best means to reverse the global warming and get back a stable climate again. Of course, this requires that we take care of and make sure the oceans are healthy. That we stop some ocean related human activities, and instead do everything we can to make the ecosystems in the oceans thrive again.
  • The ocean is the main source of food for a large share of humanity, especially in poor countries along coasts. Preserving thriving ecosystems in oceans ensures these people survives.
  • Large scale fishing practices, such as industrial fishing boats that can stay at sea for weeks, are typically harmful for the ecosystems in the oceans. These boats catch everything and make it difficult for life in sea to recover. Have you noticed that many fish shops have disappeared in recent years? This is a sign that there are less fish left in the oceans and that fishing practices have been completely unsustainable. Another fishing practice that destroy ecosystems in oceans are bottom trawling. The seabed at that the bottom is very important for a healthy life in the sea. This is where new born fish and other living creatures in the sea take shelter to survive.
  • Based on current practices, farming salmon demands wild fish for feed. Very efficient industrial fishing ships empty the oceans all over the world from many small fish, e.g. herrings, sprats, sardines, and anchovies, and some boats even specialized in krill, and produce fish oil and meal to feed big aquaculture fish like salmon. To avoid that ecosystems in the sea collapse, this practice cannot be used.
  • International discussions under United Nations are targeting for ultimately creating marin protected areas for 30% of oceans. This is encouraging and need to be supported, but some scientists claim at least 50% of the ocean area need to be protected for it to be long-term sustainable.
  • One of the main threats to healthy ecosystems in oceans are plastic waste. UN is working on an agreement on plastic pollution. Scientists in California suggests a set of actions to solve the major part of the problems with plastic waste: High reduction in single use packaging; put a cap on virgin production of plastic; increase plastic recycling and invest in waste infrastructure; mandate minimum levels of plastic recycling in products (e.g. >40%); put a tax on packaging consumption; reduce additives in plastic and ban polystyrene packaging.

How?

  • Consume less fish and sea food. Allows ecosystems in the seas to recover and the carbon capture processes in oceans to gain strength again.
  • Buy locally caught fish from small scale fishers. Tends to be sustainable and preserves the ecosystems in oceans.
  • Avoid deep frozen fish, that often originate from industrial style fishing harmful to oceans.
  • Avoid farmed fish, e.g. salmon. Unfortunately such fish is predominately fed by fish oil and meal produced from huge quantities of small fish and krill essential to the balance of ecosystems in the oceans.
  • Never eat shark fin soup. Sharks are important for healthy ecosystems in the oceans.
  • Don’t eat fish caught by bottom trawling, e.g. flounder, sole, turbot, plaice, halibut, and monkfish. Large scale fishing typically uses bottom trawling, which destroy habitats for fish and harm marine ecosystems.
  • Eating more vegetarian food releases the pressure on ocean ecosystems. Vegetarian food is a much more resource efficient food source than both fish and meat.
  • Support creating marine reserves where no fishing is allowed. In the reserves fish and marine life can recover. The fish also tend to spread to other areas were the fishing will be better again.
  • Oppose deep sea mining. Very harmful to ecosystems in the oceans, especially since the sea bottom is needed by new born fish and many other creatures for their lifecycle.
  • Minimize your use of plastics. Make sure the plastic you still use does not end up in the sea by recycling the plastic.
  • Clothes made of polyester and nylon release micro plastics every time washed. Use a washing machine equipped with a filter removing these plastics. Use less clothes made from polyester or nylon.
  • Replant mangrove forests where there used to be. Mangroves are the nursery for fish and many other creatures living in the ocean, helps them to survive their childhood and grow big. Mangroves also protects land from typhoons, hurricanes and stops erosion. In short, mangroves supports healthy ecosystems both on land and in sea.

Why?

  • Trees and forests are a key mechanism to remove carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere, they are a “carbon sink”. Every wooden thing is actually made of CO2 taken from the atmosphere. As such, much of the excessive CO2 that have already been released into the atmosphere when we have burned fossil fuels, could be removed by planting more trees and forests. Though we need to stop burning even more fossil fuels ASAP – that is now!
  • Forests and trees are the fundament for life on earth, on land. How we protect and manage forests the next ten years, will define our future as mankind on this Planet.
  • Earth without forests would be an earth without higher lifeforms. Forests are the base for ecosystems where both humans, other animals and plants can exist. Of course, we don’t need to live inside forests, but we need forests nearby and a major part of land areas (about 30-50%) need to be covered by forests to have sustainable and healthy ecosystems.
  • Trees and forests smoothen out extreme weather. Days when it’s hot, their photosynthesis absorbs radiation (i.e. heat) from sun. Trees absorb over 20% of the solar radiation. Days when it’s cold, they preserve and buffer warmth from earlier days. When it’s windy, they provide shelter and reduce the cooling effect. When it is raining heavily, they mitigate flooding by retaining water. When there is drought, forests suck up water from deep down the ground and release water vapor into air. That mitigates the drought and absorbs heat (everyone knows that a lot of heat is needed/used to boil a pot of water dry into vapor). Plants and mushrooms in the forest release pollen and spores into the air, that serve as condensation nucleus for water vapor and thereby start rain to fall. Even bacteria, e.g. the Pseudomonas Syringae found in forests and healthy soil, can disperse through the atmosphere and act as the coolant around which water vapor condenses into raindrops. Trees can even initiate rainfall themselves by emitting certain chemicals that can make water vapor condense into rain. And as one scientist, Professor Dominick Spracklen, even put it – “NO FOREST, NO RAIN”. So without forests, weather tend to be more extreme.
  • A healthy forest is a bio diverse forest. The forest that have many different species of trees, trees of different ages, many different species of plants, insects and animals, will be more resistant and resilient to disasters such as wild fires, droughts, floodings and deceases. It will also be more resilient and adapt better to changes in climate.
  • It might seem like a challenge to take care of and plant new forests, when we need the land for farming to grow our food. But did you know that approximately 80% of the agricultural land is used to feed our livestock. So by eating less meat, there is no problem in planting new forests. Or maybe we should say, restoring land that used to be forests – it all used to be forests a few thousand years ago. Preferably some of the less fertile land is restored to forests, and the more fertile is kept for agriculture. For one inspiring example, see this documentary.

How?

  • Stop deforestation and cutting down remaining forests.
  • Plant trees and restore forests on low yield arable land. Keep the high yield arable land for agriculture.
  • Eat less meat and more vegetarian food.
  • Plant different trees, not monocultures. Biodiversity gives resilience, e.g. increases resistance to wild fires, flooding, storms and erosion. Use native trees and plants.
  • Plant more trees in cities. Trees clean the air, provide shadow, absorb heat and reduce the temperature during hot days. Trees also retain water and mitigates damages from heavy rain. Trees also affects mental health and makes you feel good.
  • Replant mangrove forests where there used to be. Besides being a carbon sink and producing oxygen, mangroves protects land from typhoons, hurricanes and stops erosion. Mangroves are also the nursery for fish and many other creatures living in the ocean, helps them to survive their childhood and grow big. In short, mangroves supports healthy ecosystems both on land and in sea.
  • Stop using palm oil and products containing palm oil. Large rainforests are being cut down just to plant palm oil trees. Such monocultures are as far from healthy ecosystems one can be.
  • Stop unlawful hunting and killing of animals. Large animals such as elephants, rhinos, lions, tigers, jaguars, wolfs, crocodiles, monkeys, bears, whales, sharks, etc, are all important for the health of the respective ecosystem they belong to. For closer explanation why, take a look for example at this TED talk.
  • Restoring forests is amazingly easy. Set land aside and leave it alone. Fences might be needed to keep grazing animals such as goats and sheep out. Seeds hidden in the ground will soon start to grow and within 5 to 10 years, a forest and natural ecosystem will be born again. The process could be speeded up by bringing in and planting indigenous trees and plants.
  • Don’t use clear cutting of forests. Instead apply incremental harvesting of selected trees, not to disrupt the forest’s ecosystem, the soil included. The soil and the rich life of fungi, bacteria, viruses, and other microorganisms it contains, is what provides the nutrients to the trees and plants in the forest. Done in the right way, incremental harvesting will also long term give a better bottom line economically.
  • Avoid heavy use of products or bi-products from forests. What the forest produces, is to a large extent needed in the forest itself for the forest to be healthy and long term thriving. It would be naive to believe that forests produce a large surplus, given that everything in nature is very optimized and well-functioning.
  • Let the soil keep and accumulate organic materials from trees, plants and animals. This is what holds moisture and contains carbon, and this is where the nutrients are released and recycled. Living soils in healthy ecosystems contains on average three times more carbon than all the foliage above the ground. This is an efficient way to sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and perhaps the best way to recover from climate change.

Why?

  • Today a large share of land on Earth is used for agriculture. Therefore of course how agriculture is practiced has a large impact on ecosystems and on Earth’s energy balance. That is, the climate and the weather.
  • 80% of the agricultural land is today used to feed our livestock. A sustainable agriculture must be more focused towards directly feeding people rather than our livestock. It is hardly sustainable for our planet and its ecosystems, that of all animals on Earth, there are 10 times more livestock animals than wild animals (counted in biomass). This imbalance is indeed one important reason for the problems humanity is now facing with global warming. The simple solution – eat less meat and more plant-based food.

How?

  • Eat less meat and more plant-based food.
  • Make farming more sustainable. Right managed farmland and soil can be turned into a carbon sink e.g. in richer root systems, instead of a carbon source as in many conventional farms today.
  • Change to either low-till or no-till farming practices. Minimizing plowing builds soil health and increases carbon in the soil.
  • Grow at least four or five crops in rotation. Builds soil health and increases yields.
  • Keep the ground covered by living plants. Builds soil health and mitigates erosion and impact from flooding and drought.
  • Intermediate crops during winter time is a good practice in some parts of the world.
  • Switch to crops that survive several years.
  • Go organic, or even biodynamic. Reduce and stop the use of pesticides and fossil based fertilizers. These are both harmful to the rich life of the soil and hence not sustainable. Biodynamic farming are even more healthy for the soil using sustainable circular and regenerative farming practices.
  • Take care of the soil, always build soil health. The soil and its rich life of fungi, bacteria, viruses, and other microorganisms it contains, is what provides the nutrients to the crop.
  • Breed new crops better adapted in taking advantage of healthy soils and all the nutrition that mycorrhizal fungi and microorganisms can provide.
  • Let the soil accumulate organic materials from plants and animals. This is what holds moisture and contains carbon, and this is where the nutrients are recycled. Living soils contains on average three times more carbon than a foliage above the ground. This is an efficient way to sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and ultimately recover from climate change.
  • Avoid monocultures on large areas. Keep trees and wild plants between fields, along roads, and on nearby non-farmland. Biodiversity gives resilience, e.g. increases resistance to diseases, drought and flooding.
  • Increase local supply for cities, i.e. “urban perimeter agriculture”. Potentially the highest production of vegetables, lowest cost of transport, and a low cost of employment.
  • Avoid products containing palm oil. Stop large scale palm oil plantations, which are a disaster for many of Earth’s forests.
  • Learn from science and best practices the best way to achieve a sustainable agriculture that builds soil quality and a healthy ecosystem where you live.

Why?

  • A reduced consumption of material products may be compensated by an increased consumption in the service and experience sectors. In other words, an adaptation to the global warming could be by a shift in focus from consumption of physical products with high embodied content of fossil energy, to a consumption of immaterial products with lower or no content of fossil energy.

How?

  • Use different means to promote a life style where people spend more of their time and money on social activities of various kinds requiring less energy and fossil fuel. This can be a long range of different activities such as cultural activities, visiting restaurants, cafés, movies, enjoying music, concerts, theaters, museums, spending time with family and friends, barbecues, enjoying sports of most kinds, baseball, Super Bowl, soccer and football, “slow traveling” e.g. by train and buses driven by renewable fuels, etc. Note that activities that requires large amounts of energy (i.e. today fossil fuels) are disqualified from the list.
  • Make step vise adjustments of the education system to increase capacity of professions where there will be a higher demand.

Why?

  • The products all of us consumes today requires large amounts of fossil fuels before they reach our hand at the store or the UPS. It is fuels for producing and transporting the materials it is made of, fuels for manufacturing the product itself, fuels for shipping and transports (the list can be made long). By doubling the life time of all products, the fossil fuels used in many sectors of our society should in principle be possible to be reduced by half.
  • Jobs lost from a reduced consumption of products may be compensated by new jobs within the repair and maintenance sector, within organic farming, and new jobs within sectors of low or no energy dependency within the society (e.g. entertainment, music, cafés, restaurants, sports, services of various types, etc).

How?

  • Run campaigns giving background and motivating people to chose quality.
  • Introduce tax benefits for a repairs, maintenance and spare parts sector, as well as for the second hand sector. Increase the VAT for products especially products with high fossil fuel content. Decrease the VAT for products and services with low or no fossil fuel content.
  • Stimulate education and research focusing on product quality.
  • Consider introducing some regulation of the marketing sectors.
  • Find ways to help people to chose quality products on the market. Maybe the ”Pricerunner” turned into a ”Qualityrunner”. The possibility for people on various hotel booking sites to give reviews of their stay have probably increased the quality of some hotel segments on the market.
  • Learn from the products that were produced in the mid 20th century, many of those had a long product life time.

Why?

  • Organic food production is a foundation for a post fossil society. Not primarily because of the health aspects, but because it is more fuel efficient and resistant to an extreme climate. Both fertilizers and pesticides used on most farms today have a high energy content most often of fossil origin. Organic farms does also typically use local varieties of seed and plants. This gives a better adaptation to the local climate and soil and a better resistance to droughts and flooding.
  • To be long term sustainable, the quality of soil always need to be built. That is, the soil need to be cared for so that the amount of microorganisms and carbon always grows every year. Pesticides and fossil based fertilizers are harmful to the soil and it’s microbial life and can therefore not be used.
  • Vegetarian food can be produced using ten times less resources. By reducing the meat production e.g. to half, farmland that used to produce animal feed will be freed up. On this land, forests can be reintroduced, re-establishing biodiversity and nature’s ability to capture carbon from atmosphere. This could be the best way to stabilize the climate, and at the lowest cost.

How?

  • Create policies that will stimulate organic and vegetarian food production.
  • Promote organic and vegetarian food alternatives within national institutions.
  • Learn from other nations and regions that have progressed in organic and vegetarian food production.
  • Study the whole infrastructure around organic farming including recycling of fertilizers etc.
  • Establish a national website to spread information of best practices for organic farming.
  • Use other means and tools at your disposal.

Why?

  • About 70% of energies used in modern societies today originates from fossil fuels. The technology and solutions for transforming the society to only using renewable energies exists today. However to be prepared for issues that may arise during the transition phase, well chosen investments in R&D and green tech could prove useful.
  • The transition itself stimulates the economy. Take advantage of this by having invested in R&D and green tech where the demand is.

How?

  • Use your available tools to stimulate relevant R&D and green tech enterprises. Invent new methods to stimulate, create new R&D areas and create a rich environment for start-up companies as needed.
  • Ensure that the educational system generates the right competence
  • Stimulate close cooperation between universities and enterprises

Why?

  • It is obvious that global warming will not stop until we have replaced fossil energy with fossil free alternatives. Using more efficient combustion engines will only delay the global warming a few years, not stop it. Generation of electricity is a key user of fossil fuels in all forms, coal, oil and natural gas. It is therefore necessary that all electricity generation and energy production in general is turned into a fossil free sector as quickly as possible. Electricity will be even more dominant in a post fossil society, e.g. it may dominate the transport sector too.

How?

  • Increase taxes on fossil fuels. There need to be a minimum prize on fossil fuels – a minimum prize that includes the cost for the damages caused by the green house gases released from the fossil fuel. The motivation is that the costs for the climate disasters should be carried by the activities causing them. That would raise the price significantly on fossil fuels and make investments in renewable more attractive. Increase the taxes stepwise to allow a controlled migration to the new technology. Be as clear as possible about the planned tax increase steps to help investors in their long term planning.
  • Use a well engineered plan for taxes and subsidies. When the energy production has been shifted to fossil free energy, the total costs for the subsidies could have been paid by the total taxes for the fossil fuels. But make sure the initial subsidies are aggressive for a rapid take-off of the renewable market.
  • Increase regulation and control of the energy production sector to ensure that the market doesn’t invent new ways to burn the fossil fuels, e.g. export it.
  • Work on the international arena with regulation of fossil fuels e.g.establishing a global minimum prize and taxation of fossil fuels. Prioritize coal regulation as a first step.
  • Wind power has a good prospect for being a corner stone of energy production in a fossil free society. It is a mature technology, low investment costs, can be rolled out on large scale rapidly and is an infinite source of energy. Calculations by researchers at Stanford University has shown that wind could meet many times the world’s total power demand.
  • There are of course issues with wind power, e.g. different timing of production and demand, but those issues should be possible to solve by the industry and researchers along the road. Parts of the solutions might be, hydrogen production at peak production, smart grid and smarter control of industrial processes, smart homes, smart buildings, smart charging of electrical cars, reversing hydro power plants, etc.
  • In addition the warmer climate will increase the power of winds, hence increasing the possibilities to harvest electricity from wind power. The energy harvested from the wind might also mitigate the damages caused by strong winds.

Why?

  • The transport sector is a major source of the green house gases that disrupts our climate. Fossil driven vehicles used by the transport sector needs to be replaced by fossil free alternatives. These alternatives are already available today. Electrical vehicles are generally less complex than combustion driven vehicles. Therefore electrical vehicles have a potential to have a lower price tag than vehicles have today. Stimulation is however needed to make it take off and speed up the transition from a combustion to an electrical fleet.
  • Fossil free transportation should also give a better air quality in cities. Bad air quality is a major issue in many major cities today. This would give both happier and healthier citizens and potentially reducing the total health costs in the society.

How?

  • Eliminate or reduce taxation of electrical vehicles, use differentiated road tolls and parking fees. Even if it is just for a period of some years, this would accelerate the replacement of the fossil driven fleet.
  • Add taxation to the fossil driven alternatives to make them less attractive. The motivation is that the costs for climate disasters need to be taken by those who are causing it. Well engineered, this may finance the subsidies for the fossil free vehicles.
  • Make sure the capacity scaling of renewable energy production (e.g. wind, sun, geothermal etc) meets the energy demand from the transportation sector.
  • Make new investments in rail based transportation infrastructure. Transportation of both goods and people can be shifted to rail. Consider high speed trains for people transportation to make it competitive with aviation.
  • Establish an infrastructure hydrogen fuel. Stations for refueling hydrogen driven electrical cars and trucks. Hydrogen production plants could be based on peak production from wind- and solar production when generated power exceeds demand.

Why?

  • Heating and cooling are using a significant part of energy in our society today. As long as that energy originates from fossil fuels it will contribute to a more and more violent climate and causing costs to recover from storm damages and increased costs for food production due to failing crops.
  • As the climate is becoming more extreme, even more energy will be required for heating and cooling. To get out of the vicious spiral it is therefore essential to as soon as possible make sure the heating/cooling sector is a fossil free sector.

How?

  • Introduce or adjust regulation and policies to make solar power, wind energy and geothermal energy the preferred choices for producing energy for heating and cooling. Look at success stories e.g. from Denmark, Germany etc, how it can be done.
  • Make sure that energy companies offer plans with renewable energy.
  • Check that the regulation and standards for insulation of houses and premises promotes an energy efficient way of constructing.
  • Check that the regulation and standards of heating and cooling promotes usage of the most energy efficient equipment on the market.
  • Establish subsidies for insulating old houses and enterprise premises.
  • Introduce increased taxes for heating/cooling that are dependent on fossil energy.
  • Simplify for citizens or groups of citizens who want to invest in renewable energy or live in an eco friendly way.
  • Note that wind energy alone has been calculated to have a potential many times the total energy usage on the planet today (by National Academy of Science, USA, 2009). So don’t underestimate its potential.

Why?

  • The release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from the burning fossil fuels is the root cause of the global warming. A shift from fossil fuels to fossil-free is very urgent. Fuel efficiency e.g. as in modern cars, does not prevent the global warming, it just delays it. To stop the global warming we need to stop using fossil fuels completely. It basically needs to stay in the ground. And we need to start the shift now and within a decade or two the transition to the fossil free society need to be finished. If we don’t manage that, our children will inherit a non-functioning society and yet having to deal with weather catastrophes of all kinds. Basically we will leave them without a future. That is the inconvenient truth.
  • There are in practice no way to compensate for fossil carbon dioxide once it has been released into the atmosphere. If it is released, it is released. Trying to compensate by planting trees is just a temporary binding of the carbon dioxide as it will be released again into the atmosphere when the organic material of the tree sooner or later decomposes. A true compensation would be Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), but the world’s only large scale CCS project run by Norwegians was closed down as it was considered impossible to do it on a large scale. CCS also suffers from the weakness that it requires energy hence reducing the benefit of using the fossil fuel from the very beginning.

How?

  • Put a tax on fossil fuels to reflect the full cost including indirect costs on the environment of burning fossil fuels. Offset with a reduction in the tax on income and initial subsidies for renewable energy. A full cost price on fossils will speed up the shift to fossil free replacements. (For further details see e.g. page 184 in Lester Brown’s book Word on the Edge).
  • Make sure new infrastructures in the society are in place not to limit a rapid increased demand for fossil free alternatives. For example, battery charging or replacement possibilities for electrical cars used for city commuting, high speed train links between major cities, increased capacity for rail based electrified transportation, hydrogen stations for fueling of hydrogen driven vehicles, production of hydrogen using wind and solar power, sufficient scale up of wind-, solar- and geothermal energy production, etc.
  • Check with city mayors, enterprise leaders, and citizens what support they need in their work to shift to fossil free energy. Consider and find ways to meet their requests.
  • Keep running campaigns for energy efficiency in all sectors of the society to facilitate the fuel shift.

Why?

  • A higher degree of local provision of basic products and services, will reduce the total amount of transportation needed, plus create local jobs. In addition it will increase the resilience and make the society more independent of extreme weather disasters around the planet such as flooding, drought, shortage of food, civil unrest and other direct or indirect effects from a more violent climate. Local provision are more likely to be unaffected by disruptions to the global supply chains. Especially food security is important.

How?

  • Use different tools you have available for stimulating local provision of at least basic products and services to give the society of your responsibility a high level of resilience.

Why?

  • The awareness among people that something is wrong with the climate is today quite well established in many countries. However a deeper knowledge of resilience and sustainability on all levels in the society is needed in order motivate and create understanding for the necessary changes in the society. All of us need to be able to take the right decisions in order to meet the challenges in front of us.
  • By giving resilience and sustainability high priority in the society, the transition to a post fossil society can be speeded up.
  • Taking controlled measures now to address the resilience and sustainability issues, will eventually save money by avoiding costs from the extreme weather disasters that otherwise would have been more bad.

How?

  • Ensure the new disciplines are part of the teaching on all educational levels from basic and up.
  • Increase the research at universities in the resilience and sustainability areas.
  • Introduce new policies and regulations on resilience and sustainability to guide enterprises, cities and citizens in the transition to the post fossil society.
  • Take the initiative to raise the competence level in your own organization on resilience and sustainability.
  • Make sure resilience and sustainability issues are always on the agenda and addressed with high priority.

Why?

  • Companies typically don’t take environmental responsibilities unless they are forced to by their customers, or by law and regulation. Yet companies have a crucial role in stopping the global warming.

How?

  • Establish an ecocide law or regulation to make it illegal for a company to put its own interest before the interest of humanity to stop the global warming.
  • Make sure clear information about the new law or regulation reaches the management in all companies.
  • Enforce the law or regulation as clear cases of violation arises.
  • Work internationally for the establishment of an international tribunal for climate related ecocides. This may be essential as many companies today are active on a global basis. Such a tribunal may be similar to the international tribunal in Haag for crimes against humanity. Maybe the scope of the Haag tribunal can be extended for ecocide crimes as well.

Why?

  • The global warming is a global issue. That does not mean it can only be handled on a global level, quite the opposite. It needs to be handled at all levels in the society in parallel – by each citizen, enterprise leader, city mayor, up to national and international level. Some measures becomes more effective if they are accompanied by agreements between multiple nations or at a global level (e.g. under the UN umbrella), for example a minimum price or tax level on fossil fuels. A few measures can only be accomplished at a global level, for example an international tribunal for ecocide crimes.

How?

  • Use what you have at your disposal, personal contacts, international forums, organizations etc, to push for various kinds of agreements.
  • It is probably easier to agree on more specific things bilaterally or among a smaller group of nations, than to make general agreements signed by all worlds nations. Make an agreement with a neighboring country to both give new electrical cars three years free of taxes. Start in smaller scale and expand or work with several strategies simultaneously. Every agreement, small or big, is a step in the right direction. It’s about getting the snowball start rolling. Eventually it may start increasing its speed by its own weight.
  • Share your progress with your personal contacts to inspire others to follow. Issue press releases for each agreement made to let everyone share the positive feeling and energy from that progress is being made.

Questions answered

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