Politics and the Climate Countdown
1 October 2012
Time is running out fast if we are to avoid breaching the critical 2C threshold in the attempt to tackle human-induced climate change, beyond which lies the possibility of irresistible, runaway global warming.
Whilst ongoing research continues to confirm global warming as the greatest threat to life on earth, the issue has receded from the political frontline, as politicians and public unite in a pathetic lamentation for the old, moribund, debt ridden, spiv economy. Government energy policies with respect to oil and gas, as well as coal in many parts of the world, seem hell-bent on taking us backwards to carboniferous capitalism at its worst. Not seeing the irony, there is an assumption that livelihoods matter more than life itself. If people, in their desperation for jobs, let governments get away with this, then they will deserve everything that is coming to them. They have been warned, many times, for a long time. Many scientists already think that it is unlikely that a 2C temperature rise can be avoided. Whilst the EU has set the 2C mark as a line that the world should not cross, many scientists think that a temperature increase of 4C is more likely, and maybe even worse.
Given the accumulative dynamic of the capitalist economy and given the fact that parliamentary politics revolves around the electoral cycle, it seems somewhat pointless to criticise the system for its short-termism and short-sightedness. It’s like criticising a fish for swimming, a politician for lying and a journalist for immoral behaviour. It’s pointless making demands upon an apple that it should act like a pear. The long-term strategic thinking for the common good has to come from somewhere outside of the existing political and economic system.
'Where can wisdom be found?', asks Job. 'Where does understanding dwell?' (Job 28:12 20).
There is plenty to be gained in terms of planetary health and human flourishing from the transition to the low-carbon, well-being economy. And it will be an economy that generates growth in the right areas and employment for millions. Investment in energy-efficiency and in renewable energy are just ways of acting to benefit the economy and the environment in tandem, generating employment, creating more secure energy systems, reducing pollution, and the carbon footprint.
The diminution in political action and public concern comes against a backdrop of a record melt in the Arctic, the highest level of greenhouse gas concentrations above the Arctic for 800,000 years, and record temperatures, drought and crop failure in the US.
Edward Elgar’s haunting Sospiri was written on the eve of the Great War, as if the composer had a premonition of the horror to come. In 1910 he wrote that we are sleepwalking into a tragedy. One hundred years later, we seem to be sleepwalking into a catastrophic climate change of our own making. And the most mystifying thing of all is that we seem to know it, and yet still do nothing.
For an explanation, I can do no better than to quote Kenneth Clark on the nature of civilisation and the factors leading to the fall of civilisation.
It shows that however complex and solid it seems, it is actually quite fragile. It can be destroyed. What are its enemies? Well, first of all fear - fear of war, fear of invasion, fear of plague and famine, that make it simply not worthwhile constructing things, or planting trees or even planning next year's crops. And fear of the supernatural, which means that you daren't question anything or change anything. The late antique world was full of meaningless rituals, mystery religions, that destroyed self-confidence. And then exhaustion, the feeling of hopelessness which can overtake people even with a high degree of material prosperity. There is a poem by the modern Greek poet, Cavafy, in which he imagines the people of an antique town like Alexandria waiting every day for the barbarians to come and sack the city. Finally the barbarians move off somewhere else and the city is saved; but the people are disappointed - it would have been better than nothing. Of course, civilisation requires a modicum of material prosperity — enough to provide a little leisure. But, far more, it requires confidence — confidence in the society in which one lives, belief in its philosophy, belief in its laws, and confidence in one's own mental powers… Vigour, energy, vitality: all the great civilisations — or civilising epochs - have had a weight of energy behind them.
So if one asks why the civilisation of Greece and Rome collapsed, the real answer is that it was exhausted.
Kenneth Clark Civilisation 1969 ch 1
It is entirely possible that, after nearly three centuries of strenuous, society changing, morality dissolving economic growth, with endless transformation and destruction of all the old ties and solidarities, people are exhausted. Having made our Faustian bargains and sold our souls for material gain and gratification, our technics have let us down and failed to deliver peace, freedom and happiness. Instead, endless war, terror, social breakdown, moral confusion and permanent stress and anxiety. What’s the point of building anything when nothing is permanent, other than the treadmill which we must constantly tread just to stand upright? The failure to act, despite the wealth of evidence set before us, demonstrates a people wholly lacking in faith in themselves, their society and the future. The climate crisis is not merely a political, economic or technological crisis, above all else it is an existential crisis, a crisis in the human character and the way of life.
The sooner we realise that, the sooner we will stop demanding actions from governments that governments cannot engage in. It’s a question for us as citizens. It’s time for the ecopolis.