Exploring why as the end of the world nears

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF INSANITY

Bob Lloyd

By JOCELYN HARRIS

What on Earth is going on? All those lovely summery days felt horribly wrong for Dunedin, while up north, cyclones and monsoonlike rain devastated homes, farms, businesses and roads. Associate Professor Bob Lloyd, former head of Energy Studies in the Physics Department at the University of Otago, explains why in his passionate, essential book, One Hundred Years of Insanity.

Put simply, we are in trouble. We consume crude oil as though it will last forever, even though peak oil, meaning the end of economically extractable energy, is fast approaching. Global heating, caused by burning those same fossil fuels, already unleashes havoc worldwide. Together, says Lloyd, they threaten life on Earth with extinction.

He traces the climate crisis back to an expanding world population and our addiction to economic growth. To decrease

CO2 emissions, we must therefore decrease growth. But how, when militarism and the struggle for trade dominance produce so many emissions? In 2022 alone, the world spent a staggering

$22 trillion dollars on warfare, and only about $100 billion on climate change mitigation. Scientists reckon that the chance of staying below 1.5C warming is only 610%. The triggering of climatic tipping points looks inevitable.

Lloyd calls for drastic political and social action to reverse a catastrophic overshoot of CO2. Politicians managed to restrict wellbeing for longterm gain during Covid, he says, so will they do the same to fend off climate change? Unlikely, for that would be seen as tyranny, triggering social unrest, unemployment, and further waves of migration. Desperate governments might even reach for the nuclear option. On 24 January 2023, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists revealed that the Doomsday Clock now stands at 90 seconds to midnight.

Two decades ago, the phrase ‘‘climate change’’ appeared rarely in our media, even after the great James Hansen, a world expert on climatology, spoke at Lloyd’s request to an overflow audience on campus. Today, our children understand that there is no

Planet B. Can adults likewise accept that ‘‘sustainable growth’’ is a contradiction in terms?

A Hundred Years of Insanity is a remarkable resource, crammed full of matter yet leavened by Lloyd’s trademark wry humour and quotations from the Eagles and Tom Lehrer. He gathers up his evidence and arguments into a ‘‘play on the world stage’’ about what he calls the neoliberal love affair with the free market. Historical commentators range from Dwight D. Eisenhower to Antonio Guterres, Greta Thunberg, Pope Francis and hundreds more. The author knows all too well that his ‘‘play’’ will unnerve and unsettle his audience. Yet, if we are to survive, we have to heed bearers of bad news such as Bob Lloyd. Then unite to do what we must.

Jocelyn Harris taught English at the University of Otago and was a founding member of Sustainable Dunedin City and Wise Response