{"id":8378,"date":"2023-09-27T09:51:06","date_gmt":"2023-09-27T09:51:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=8378"},"modified":"2023-09-27T09:51:06","modified_gmt":"2023-09-27T09:51:06","slug":"a-reinvention-of-civilisation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2023\/09\/27\/a-reinvention-of-civilisation\/","title":{"rendered":"A Reinvention of Civilisation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Helen Thompson's article in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetimes.co.uk\/article\/why-net-zero-requires-a-reinvention-of-civilisation-ps776hcmr\">recent Sunday Times<\/a> reminds us that our Net-Zero legislation passed through the UK parliament in indecent haste in the dog days of the May government. \u00a0Her article: <em>Why net zero requires a reinvention of civilisation<\/em>, was like a fresh breeze clearing the air in a rank debate. \u00a0There is a hard truth \u2013 or two \u2013 in every paragraph. \u00a0I strongly recommend a read \u2013 maybe every month \u2026<\/p>\n<p>This is how it begins:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFossil fuel energy has been the material basis of modern civilisation. The Industrial Revolution was the start of an energy revolution that transformed how human beings could live. Today the four basic physical pillars of our society \u2014 ammonia, cement, plastics and steel \u2014 are largely produced using fossil fuels. So net zero requires reinventing modern civilisation. It requires transforming the energy basis of our way of life within less than three decades. There is no precedent in human history.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026..<\/p>\n<p>Helen is professor of political economy at Cambridge University and co-presenter of the podcast <a href=\"https:\/\/shows.acast.com\/these-times\"><em>These Times<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Helen Thompson's article in a recent Sunday Times reminds us that our Net-Zero legislation passed through the UK parliament in indecent haste in the dog days of the May government. \u00a0Her article: Why net zero requires a reinvention of civilisation,...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-news-and-updates"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8378\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}