Climate change: if we can’t have evolution, how about revolution?

When it became clear to me that knowing the right answers was a tricky and rather subjective proposition, I concluded that it might be more practical to ensure that, at minimum, I was actually asking the right questions.

I’ve been writing about climate change for quite a while now, and despite my growing disquiet, the thrust of my arguments has always been to advocate some kind of evolution, where what we have now is, for the most part, retained. In other words, I have hoped that it was possible we could transition from the destructive, confrontational and often violent norms that have led us here, towards something more sane, balanced, and egalitarian. Why should our aspirations not reach for a better world, a fairer world? Is our undoubted inventiveness to be defeated by such a proposition. Are we really incapable of sharing wealth, of finding sufficient respect for each other and for the environment on which we depend utterly that we don’t severely fuck it up even as we extract everything of value from it, and fight with anyone who stands in our way?

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Gleick: Loose talk still costs lives.

I can’t help but feel Peter Gleick would have been better prepared if he had read a couple of John Le Carré books before venturing into the world of amateur espionage. If he had read The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, for example – a chilling tale in which the British ‘Gentlemen’ spies were hoist on the petard of their own amateurism – perhaps he might have realised that covert actions are not for the faint-hearted, nor for those afflicted with an inappropriate sense of conscience (and who inevitably end up as cannon-fodder).

Climate change, Durban, and why we are not doing the right thing. Yet.

It seems to me that, on the eve of the Durban conference, the environmental movement is fast reaching an impasse, where none of us know what else we can try, what else we can say or do, that will actually bring about a response in keeping with the scale of the problem.

The fatalism that pervades most writing on the subject is regrettable, but how much longer can we continue to write optimistic pieces advocating agreements we know will never be reached, solutions we know will never be implemented, aid we know will never materialise? Frankly, I think we’re stuck, all of us.

Climate Change Denial: Who can you trust when you don’t trust yourself?

In a CiF blog thread a poster made some derogatory remarks about “the ease” with which I make my various claims. This was the usual snidery and demands no discussion, but it got me thinking about another conversation taking place between myself and KingInYellow, who pops by here from time to time; the curious left/right political divide along which the climate debate has split.

I started off thinking about relative intelligence – daft to suggest the right or left have any deficiencies on that score. Are the right less interested in science? Nope – another daft idea. In fact, I couldn’t really come up with any convincing explanation for the division, except perhaps that because it is the political right who have conflated science with politics, out of a combination of anxiety and self-interest, the only proponents of the science are those who are…er…left. It isn’t that the left have some more technical leaning, or that Marxists gravitate toward science, it’s that the right have run away from science since it will not support their anxious view. I admit however, in the privacy of this blog, that my ‘explanation’ is not entirely convincing.

Population Part 2 – Perverse solutions: Involuntary suicide and driving evolution in reverse gear

In my previous post, I laid out arguments against us finding equitable solutions to the burgeoning global population and its relentless expansion. I say equitable because there are some other solutions which invoke exactly the kind of draconian measures the supporters of climate science are accused of favouring – totalitarianism by any other name, I guess.

It’s a silly argument for the most part, just another cliché in the histrionic vocabulary of denialism. More frustrating is that the kind of measures they fear – the advent of which I too find very worrying – will be brought about by pressure. The failure to address and mitigate anthropogenic climate change will be one of those pressures felt and reacted to with more urgency and ill-consideration than was necessary because of the delay in prudent action advocated by the complacent and self-interested.

One reaction under pressure, for example, might be war. This of course would reduce the population, especially if it were nuclear. I don’t think I’d be overreaching to suggest that a war between a failing US and an increasingly powerful China is a distinct possibility. China is now building its first aircraft carriers, the carrier group being the primary military tool for the projection of power. They recently allowed news to emerge of the first Chinese stealth fighter.  Here’s a few snippets from a March 2011 Guardian story (my emphasis):

Population growth: all questions, no answers

There isn’t much that shocks me these days. I’ve read enough history, and lived long enough, to be aware of the generally venal and violent nature of much of our past. I’ve personally witnessed a series of wars waged on poor, backward countries like Vietnam and Iraq. I’ve seen the rise of pop music, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of the USSR, the moon landings, 9/11, and England winning the world cup (the last being a real ‘once in a lifetime’ experience). I’m as cynical as one might expect at my age and disposition; the repetitive nature of so much of what I’ve witnessed does induce a certain intellectual ennui.

For all that, a story in the Guardian really did take me by surprise. In case you haven’t seen it, and before revealing what it said, let me ask you a question: what percentage of the world’s population would you say were disabled…?

Is climate change the best thing to happen to civilisation rather than the worst?

In the Guardian, Damian Carrington suggests, rather belatedly, that we need a new economic model to stave off climate change (Climate change demands we re-engineer the world economy now). I don’t think there’s a hope in hell of this happening, and now I’m not even sure if mitigation would be the best thing in the long run. The rather fatalistic analysis presented here is also a contributory factor to the lack of posts recently, since I’m no longer certain there is anything worth saying about climate change that I haven’t already said, or that fighting to keep this civilisation going is actually worth the effort in the long run.

Damian

Surely by now it must be apparent to you, as I think it is to Monbiot, that mitigation simply will not happen. The chance to achieve the 2 degree limit disappeared like so much polar ice as the new millennium was ushered in, and no amount of good intentions will bring that about now, so I do wonder why environmental writers still keep plugging away at a cause as hopeless as an appeal to a denier’s rationality.

The societal effects of anthropogenic climate change can be extrapolated in the same way as we can for the physical effects of warming on the ecosystem. Let’s consider where all this is really going.