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Matt McGrath writes at BBC that Bhutan, the strongly Buddhist country where up to three-quarters of the population follow the religion, is the only country in the world considered a role model by the Climate Action Tracking organization. Bhutan has put forward the concept of "Gross National Happiness", that represents a commitment to building an economy that would serve Bhutan's culture based on Buddhist spiritual values instead of western material development gauged by gross domestic product (GDP). Bhutan's Constitution mandates its territory to be at least 60% covered by forest – the vast carbon sink a boon for its balancing of humanity and nature. Right now over 70% is under trees, and so great are the forests, that the country absorbs far more carbon than its 750,000 population can produce. As well as inhaling all that CO2, the Bhutanese are pushing out large amounts of electricity to India, generated by hydropower from their fast flowing rivers. The prime minister says that their waters hold the potential to offset 100 million tonnes of Indian emissions every year. That's around a fifth of Britain's current annual outpourings.
Bhutan has embraced electric vehicles and the government envisages the capital city Thimpu, as a "clean-electric" city with green taxis for its 100,000 citizens - Bold plans for a city that at present doesn't have any traffic lights! "We see ourselves on the one hand being able to use electric cars for our own purposes, to protect our environment, to improve our economy, but also to show in a small measure that sustainable transport works and that electric vehicles are a reality," says Tshering Tobgay. ""In Bhutan the distances are short, electricity is very cheap and because of the mountains you can't drive exceedingly fast, so all these combined to provide us with the opportunity for the investment."
According to Dr Marcia Rocha, it's not just a question of Bhutan being spectacularly endowed with natural advantages. "I think they are a country that culturally are very connected to nature, in every document that they submit it's there, it's just a very important focus of their politics." "We may be small, our impact not huge, but we always try many conservation projects," says Kinlay Dorjee, mayor of capital Thimphu. However the modest Bhutanese Prime Minister rejects the idea that his country is the leader of the climate pack. "I feel that calling Bhutan a role model is not appropriate, every country has their own sets of challenges and their own sets opportunities."
(Score: 3, Disagree) by isostatic on Sunday September 06 2015, @06:57PM
Tuvalu is a shame, and the idea of a displaced country does set alarm bells going.
However more people claimed asylum in Germany yesterday than live in Tuvalu, and more claimed it today, and probably tomorrow.
The impact of Tuvalu is insignificant - assuming that .tv domains don't vanish.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 06 2015, @08:13PM
Tuvalu is insignificant
In the big picture, so is your neighborhood.
If it was YOUR property that was being subsumed by saltwater, I'm sure your attitude would change radically.
If that area being lost to the sea was also your ancestral home, extrapolate accordingly.
If the area being inundated has seaports through which goods must pass to get to you, that is going to put a serious crimp in the economy of your region.
Tuvalu is the canary in the coal mine.
For every 1 foot of sea level rise, 1000 feet of shoreline is lost.
It won't be long now till folks with property near the ocean [cet.edu] won't be able to get insurance on that for love or money.
...and what amazes me is that insurance companies are still investing in Big Carbon.
-- gewg_
(Score: 3, Insightful) by isostatic on Sunday September 06 2015, @09:25PM
True it's a tragedy, although the Maldives with a population 30 times bigger is just at risk.
The scale of global tragedy is too large to comprehend.
(Score: 2) by K_benzoate on Monday September 07 2015, @01:46AM
And yet there are still people who say climate change isn't happening. Or they say it is happening but it's a natural cycle that humans can't change one way or the other. Or they say it IS caused by man but trying to stop it would cause even more human suffering than doing nothing. It's a political issue because it's an economic issue. At the end of the day some very lucrative industries will have to be completely shuttered and the owners of those industries are going to fight kicking and screaming even if it means taking the rest of humanity down with them.
Climate change is real and primarily caused by human activity.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Monday September 07 2015, @03:36PM
You'd need a global agreement to fund the costs of climate change by the people who make the money from it. Perhaps then there would be a global agreement to do something about it. However as there's no way you'd get that global agreement.
Unfortunately capitalism breaks down when you can externalise the costs. If you could sue for the damage from climate change, then things would change. Realistically it's not going to.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday September 07 2015, @12:32AM
What is a shame is that the buzzword "Zen" is being invoked here, and my brain shuts down anytime I hear or read that word.
The word evokes pseudo-intellectual phoney-cultured Caucasian techies with Asian fetishes, blown-out ex-hippie women with genital herpes doing yoga in Valtrex commercials, a ridiculously overrated book (about Motorcycles or something) written by some rambling kook, and fucking nothing at all -- all at once.
The word "Zen" is probably one of the most abused buzzwords in the history of buzzwords and the only case of cultural appropriation I'd agree needs to be ceased.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 07 2015, @01:10AM
That's the word that gets me.
Is a philosophy that doesn't include a deity a "religion"?
...or is it that people of European ancestry can only think in straight lines?
-- gewg_