Lessons for climate policy from The Great Stink of London
Abstract
A rapidly growing population and the introduction of the flush toilet in nineteenth-century London caused a crisis with sewage pollution in the River Thames (Halliday, 1999). There were decades of delays in implementing solutions owing to: inadequate governance institutions; political inertia; difficulties with financing; opposition from vested interests; scientific uncertainties; and technological challenges. Effective counter-measures were started only once the problem arose, quite literally, under the noses of parliamentarians. There are parallels, some of them pointed out earlier by Alley et al (2010), between the sewage crisis in Victorian London and the current problem with climate change. Both involve the unsustainable use of a common resource (a river, the atmosphere) for the unconstrained disposal of human waste products. Alley (2011) estimated that the costs of providing clean water and sanitation are comparable to the expected costs of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Despite the similarities, the climate change issue is actually much more difficult because of: a) the unequal and uncertain global distribution of cause and effect; b) its long, intergenerational time lines; c) the insufficiency of adequate institutions, conventions or the tools— political, moral or economic—for tackling the climate crisis. This analysis is consistent with the model proposed by Gardiner (2011) in his book A Perfect Moral Storm. The three "storms" he identifies, the global, intergenerational and theoretical storms, combine in a powerful synergy to create a challenge of unprecedented intractability, providing opportunities for what Gardiner calls moral corruption: the obscuring of the buck-passing and procrastination that characterizes climate policy today. In Victorian London, the crucial steps to solve the sewage crises were not taken until the stench from the River Thames during the hot summer of 1858 rendered the House of Commons uninhabitable. A greater stink of a different kind may have to be raised in the world's capitals before effective action begins on the much more challenging problem of climate change. References Alley, R. B., Haines-Stiles, G., Akuginow, E., 2010. Toilets and the Smart Grid: A role for history and art in communicating assessed science for Earth—The Operators' Manual. AGU, Fall Meeting 2010, abstract #ED41D-05. Alley, R.B., 2011. EARTH: The Operators' Manual. W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-08109-1 Gardiner, S.H., 2011. A Perfect Moral Storm: The Ethical Tragedy of Climate Change. Oxford University Press. ISBN13: 9780195379440 Halliday, S. 1999. The Great Stink of London: Sir Joseph Bazalgette and the Cleansing of the Victorian Capital. Sutton Publishing Limited. ISBN 0-7509-1975-2
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2012
- Bibcode:
- 2012AGUFMGC21E1023S
- Keywords:
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- 1699 GLOBAL CHANGE / General or miscellaneous;
- 6699 PUBLIC ISSUES / General or miscellaneous