There’s a 91% chance that at least one of the next five years will shoot past the 1.5C threshold.
There’s a renewable resources opportunity, which – if we seize the regulatory options – could “energise democracy by democratising energy”, as we say in our Spring consortium (www.spring.site). And with academic powerhouses (with massive supercomputers) that could join up any of Piketty’s galaxies of data points.
What is missing, from both the report and Scotland, is a level of social entrepreneurship and organisational experimentalism that could make “sufficiency” both tangible and attractive (and possibly renamed).
Scottish “eco-civilisation”, to use the phrase from Jeremy Lent’s forthcoming book, could be built project by optimistic project; but these could also – because we’re small enough and smart enough – have a supportive Scottish state at their back.
Between the frightening green statistics and the utopian economic spreadsheets, there’s a Scottish model waiting to be forged. Now, if only we had a local scandal of shocking elite consumerism, by means of which we could trigger an entirely different national direction.