Ignoring climate injustice is not a viable survival strategy.
Dana Nuccitelli’s Guardian article on why the Republican Party is wrong on science, ethics, economics, risk management - it's even anti-conservative and wrong on religion too. Just plain wrong in fact.
Fossil fuel funds + political polarization = climate denial
The zero-sum politics of division, dissimulation, disinformation, nullification, obfuscation and obstruction, dividing the global community between 'winners' and 'losers', an anti-government 'libertarian' ideology that is committed to the global licence of the rich and powerful, and challenging all appeals to the common good, collaboration and cooperation, whether they are made on the basis of scientific reason or ethics or even religion. And wrong on all counts. And the irony is that it is indeed profoundly anti-conservative - - the triumph of political ideology in the service of vested interests over all fact and value conserves nothing worthy of conserving - and it does nothing even to preserve those vested interests in the long run either. Swivel-eyed ideologues peddling death-dealing delusions, we can't persuade them, only fight them - or create clusters of cooperators that push past them, apply sanctions against them and, who knows, maybe encourage some of them into cooperation ... We have tried it all – and we have seen the failure of knowledge, of ethics and morality and of the personal and the political. It’s an old theme of mine, and I shall make no apologies for returning to it – the problem cannot be addressed by facts and values alone, the problem is the separation of fact and value as a result of social relations that have instrumentalised, rationalised and commodified the world. That’s a mouthful, so I’ll do my best to explain as best I can in the constraints of this short text (I deal with it at length in The Coming Ecological Revolution and Being at One and in other places).
The capital system we live under is neither a public nor a moral domain subject to democratic will or reason or ethics; it is a regime of private accumulation, the self-expansion of values. Capital, as Marx argued, is not merely a thing to be appropriated, it is a relation, and a relation of necessary exploitation. Within capitalist relations, we live within specific social identities which set the parameters of rational action, and those point to the pursuit of individual self-interest as the dominant notion of rationality. Rational appeals to the common good presuppose a social identity in which the individual and social good coincide – that identity does not exist but stands in need of creation through the transformation of social relations as a condition of creating the conditions of behavioural responsiveness.
The views I have presented over the years have been rejected as being inadequate or irrelevant to the problem we face. In response, I argue that the critics here are guilty of an atomistic and analytical approach that break the argument up into discrete parts, failing to appreciate the essentialist and holistic case I present. I make it clear that we need to put fact and value, knowledge and ethics together, and not simply press the one or the other – scientific evidence or moral appeal – alone and apart. Neither alone, nor apart from the other, will suffice. But that doesn't make knowledge and ethics irrelevant. The failure of knowledge and ethics has to be set in the context of an untransformed and hence still ‘rationalized’ (in the Weberian sense of differentiation and separation) terrain. Of course, knowledge and ethics will fail in this context, in that they will demand forms of behaviour and self-sacrifice on the part of individuals for a common good that can only appear to be abstract in the context of prevailing social relations. The problem is the unavailability of the common good in other than abstract forms, so long as individuals are confined within social identities and socially structured patterns of behaviour that put individual self-interest before any collective interest.
I’ve said enough elsewhere on that, and refer readers to those places. I want to keep this as brief as possible. The point is, putting fact and value back together so as to enable knowledge and ethics (reason and faith in the Catholic idiom) punch their full weight requires a transformation of social relationships so as to create a social identity in which individual and social good coincide and (individual) actions and (collective) consequences, short- and long-term are brought into direct relation.
In my work, I also argue for character and character-construction, for virtues as qualities for successful and sustainable living, for the creation of the habitus which allows for the acquisition and exercise of these habits, and for the social relations which make virtuous action the norm – for the restructuring of power and resources so as to enable ecologically sound patterns of behaviour. It is only in this context that we can create and activate the will and address questions of knowledge and ethics to the motivational economy of human beings. And all of this has to be done through an integral approach that addresses what it is to be human and addresses every aspect of life with a view to an ontology of the good, defining what is valuable and meaningful, identifying purpose, the pertinent and the possible, the desirable and the necessary in the world of human experience. So I don’t argue for knowledge alone, nor ethics and morality alone, nor character, virtue, habits, will nor motivation – none of these things alone will do the trick. But together, in the context of social transformation and the creation of social identities, institutions and relations putting each and all together, so that individuality and sociality, self-interest and common interest, are two sides of the same thing, we will create the (co)responsiveness and responsibility that is required to crack the problem of collective action.
I make these points for a number of reasons. First of all to defend my work on virtue, habits, character and motivation as an irrelevant moralism that fails to touch the problem we face at its roots. I repeat, I set the moral aspects of my work here in the context of a wider social transformation creating the social identities and relations making moral appeal socially relevant. Without that transformation, the moral emphasis will indeed degenerate into an impotent moralism or, even worse, a rationalisation of unecological behaviours. I am clear on this, character-formation and social formation proceed together – effective action on the part of individuals requires not merely the right character, habits and virtues but creation of the form/s of the common life. So the criticism that the appeal to knowledge is ineffective, the appeal to ethics is ineffective, and the creation of the will and motivation is insufficient misses the point that all these things become effective only when integrated on the basis of the creation of appropriate social institutions, relations and identities. Of course that’s a big ask – but it’s a big problem we are being challenged to solve, and there are no workarounds and shortcuts.
Secondly, as the above makes clear, the climate problem has to be set within the context of specific social relations and the way that socially structured patterns of behaviour lock human beings into ecologically destructive behaviours, above and beyond their conscious will and intention. Moreover, since these relations are based on asymmetries in power and resources, it is the actions of specific individuals and groups that generate the particular consequences that are of ecological concern. Setting the problem in these terms takes us to a deeper level than the misleadingly general and politically vague terms of ‘humans’ and ‘human activity.’ Dana Nuccitelli writes of the ‘human contribution to recent global warming’ and to ‘human-caused global warming’, claiming that ‘the latest IPCC report likewise included a best estimate that humans are responsible for all of the global warming since 1950.’ ‘Many Republican policymakers will now admit, like Perry, that humans have “some impact” on the climate,’ he writes, criticising that this is merely to accept 150-year old science. The really critical point, however, is not that ‘humans have some impact’ on the climate, but that ‘some humans’ are responsible for the whole of the climate impact. That may sound quibbling, since Nuccitelli’s general point is to assert that human activity is overwhelmingly, or even 100%, responsible for global warming, and that it is inadmissible to point to natural factors. OK. But exposing the denial of the Republican Party is the easy bit. To really resolve this issue, we have to break down this ‘human activity’ into the activities of specific groups of humans within particular social relations, because only then will be in a position to uproot the problem at source. Vague notions of ‘humans’ won’t cut it, no more than appeals to scientific evidence, reason and ethics are effective with respect to specific social identities.
And to be fair, Nuccitelli’s article does make it clear that those who will be hit first and hardest by climate change are those least responsible. As he writes:
‘Sadly, today’s wealthy policymakers won’t feel the impacts of their climate policy obstruction. Today’s youth, and especially people in poorer countries who are least responsible for the problem will most suffer the consequences.’
This is the area we need to get into more. In other words, the criticism of Republican deniers has to appeal to more than facts and values, it has to relate that denialism to political ideology and social interests within specific social relations. When we do that, we will see that the irrationalism and the immoralism of the Republicans does indeed possess some kind of hard political sense. Their politics is the ugly and unacceptable face of an ugly and unacceptable economic system.
The claim that the Paris accord imposed ‘draconian’, ‘enormous’ and ‘unfair’ burdens upon the American people and economy is contradicted, first, by the non-binding, voluntary nature of the agreement, but, second, and most of all, by the sheer iniquity of the U.S. record on emissions.
‘America is the world’s biggest net carbon polluter, one of the world’s wealthiest countries, and has joined Syria and Nicaragua as the only countries rejecting the Paris climate agreement. Nicaragua objected that the agreement was too weak, and Syria was mired in a civil war. Essentially, Trump and the Republican Party stand alone in rejecting the need for climate action, despite the country’s responsibility for the problem and resources available to address it. We’re forcing the rest of the world to clean up our dangerous mess. It’s a grossly immoral and unethical position.’
Of course, neither appeals to fact nor value will work when it comes to social identities and interests. We are dealing not with general ‘human’ terms here but specific social relations – and it is important to stress that if there is to be effective action.
Nuccitelli concludes that the Republican Party ‘will eventually pay the political price for this indefensible, immoral stance, much as they lost huge segments of the American electorate due to party positions on civil rights and gay marriage.’ But the political fortunes of the ‘ins’ and the ‘outs’ is the least of our problems when we have three years or less left to avoid dangerous climate change. ‘Time is running out.’
Hopes of mild climate change dashed by new research
‘Hopes that the world’s huge carbon emissions might not drive temperatures up to dangerous levels have been dashed by new research. The work shows that temperature rises measured over recent decades do not fully reflect the global warming already in the pipeline and that the ultimate heating of the planet could be even worse than feared.’
Having recently been called an ‘alarmist’, I can only say, for the umpteenth time, there are plenty of reasons to be alarmed and I make no apologies for sounding the alarm – and showing what can be done to avoid the worst. Wasting time ‘debating’ with deniers is not one of those things.
‘“The hope was that climate sensitivity was lower and the Earth is not going to warm as much,” said Cristian Proistosescu, at Harvard University in the US, who led the new research. “There was this wave of optimism.”
The new research, published in the journal Science Advances, has ended that. “The worrisome part is that all the models show there is an amplification of the amount of warming in the future,” he said. The situation might be even worse, as Proistosescu’s work shows climate sensitivity could be as high as 6C.
Prof Bill Collins, at the University of Reading, UK, and not part of the new research, said: “Some have suggested that we might be lucky and avoid dangerous climate change without taking determined action if the climate is not very sensitive to CO2 emissions. This work provides new evidence that that chance is remote.” He said greater long term warming had implications for melting of the world’s ice sheets and the rise of sea levels that already threatens many coastal cities.
The simple answer is no.
'In any event, it’s not possible to stop emitting carbon dioxide right now. Despite significant advances in renewable energy sources, total demand for energy accelerates and carbon dioxide emissions increase. As a professor of climate and space sciences, I teach my students they need to plan for a world 4℃ warmer. A 2011 report from the International Energy Agency states that if we don’t get off our current path, then we’re looking at an Earth 6℃ warmer. Even now after the Paris Agreement, the trajectory is essentially the same. It’s hard to say we’re on a new path until we see a peak and then a downturn in carbon emissions. With the approximately 1℃ of warming we’ve already seen, the observed changes are already disturbing.There are many reasons we need to eliminate our carbon dioxide emissions. The climate is changing rapidly; if that pace is slowed, the affairs of nature and human beings can adapt more readily. The total amount of change, including sea-level rise, can be limited.
If we stop our emissions today, we won’t go back to the past. The Earth will warm. And since the response to warming is more warming through feedbacks associated with melting ice and increased atmospheric water vapor, our job becomes one of limiting the warming. If greenhouse gas emissions are eliminated quickly enough, within a small number of decades, it will keep the warming manageable. It will slow the change – and allow us to adapt. Rather than trying to recover the past, we need to be thinking about best possible futures.
A reminder
Bill McKibben
There can be no complacency after the Paris talks. Hitting even the 1.5C target will need drastic, rapid action
"At the moment the world has no real plan to do any of those things. It continues to pretend that merely setting the goal has been work enough for the last two decades. Its “training plan” – the text that negotiators agreed on in Paris – is a go-slow regimen that aims for a world 3.5C warmer."
"But the powers that be won’t be left to their own devices. Think of the ever-growing climate movement as personal trainers – for the next few years our job is to yell and scream at governments everywhere to get up off the couch, to put down the chips, to run faster faster faster. We’ll fan out around the world in May to the sites of all the world’s carbon bombs; we’ll go to jail if we have to. We’ll push. And if “personal trainer” doesn’t sound fierce enough, then think of us as a pack of wolves. Exxon, we’re on your heels. America, China, India – that’s us, getting closer all the time. You need speed. It’s our only chance."
Here is an optimistic assessment of where we are at by Adair Turner, former chairman of the United Kingdom's Financial Services Authority and former member of the UK's Financial Policy Committee, now Chairman of the Institute for New Economic Thinking.
‘President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement is deeply regrettable and based on flawed economic analysis. But unstoppable technological progress, plus determined action by other countries, companies across the world, and American cities and states, will ensure that Trump does not derail progress toward a low-carbon economy.
Trump claimed that the Paris accord would cut US GDP by $3 trillion by 2040. But the study he quoted absurdly assumes that American emissions reductions would be unmatched by action in other countries. Crucially, too, it ignores the technological revolution now transforming the economics of electricity generation.’
‘This technological revolution transforms the potential for low-carbon growth. Until recently, it was assumed that countries like India, which likely needs to triple its electricity supply within 20 years to support rising living standards, could not avoid massive increases in coal-fired generation. But a study by The Energy and Resources Institute of India illustrates that once renewables can achieve an all-in cost of $0.07 per kWh, they will be able fully to support India’s growing power needs.
As a result, while past projections assumed that coal use in India must rise to at least 1,500 million tons per year, it could peak at 900 million tons and then decline. Indeed, China’s coal consumption has been falling for three years. Britain’s fell 50% in 2016, and on April 21 of this year, Britain enjoyed its first-ever day of coal-free electricity. ETC estimates show that power decarbonization could deliver half the emissions reductions required to meet the Paris accord’s objective of limiting global temperature increases to well below 2°C, relative to the preindustrial age – and without the income losses of which Trump mistakenly warns.’
Nevertheless, Turner shows, it is a utopian delusion to think that this technological progress means that technology alone can solve all problems and that we no longer need the Paris agreement or other policy interventions. And ‘the global reaction to Trump’s decision should leave us confident that we always will have Paris (or subsequent forms of international cooperation).’
‘All other major countries have committed to maintaining their commitment to the Paris process. Numerous major companies, including many US firms and fossil fuel producers, have done the same. So, too, have the many major US cities and vitally important states such as California now supporting the “We are still in” campaign. They have rightly concluded that technological progress, nurtured by appropriate policy support, can deliver low-carbon economies alongside rising prosperity.’
'We will always need Paris,' says Turner, or other forms of international cooperation and action. I say we need to strengthen the letter of Paris in accordance to the spirit and principle. That's the stronger form of global action I argue for. I grew tired of trying to make the case for Paris, as a form of common agreement and action that is required to address climate change, whilst highlighting its weaknesses and flaws, hoping that people understood that the real case I was making was for strong and concerted global action with legal (as well as democratic and material) force. I don't need to be told by those who oppose all such action that Paris is weak and ineffective and likely to fall short of climate objectives - I know why it is weak and ineffective (not least because of the efforts of politically motivated interests seeking to evade climate responsibility, the very people who are the most vocal in pointing out Paris' feebleness ... as well as its burdensome nature ... draw the obvious conclusions from that). The weaknesses of the climate agreement we have now is the case for strengthening the climate commitment, not for abandoning Paris.
It’s an all-hands-on-deck moment on the planet. You don’t have to respond. Survival is not obligatory. You may choose, out of selfish stupidity, to keep pandering to your oafish physical self, and deaden all moral and intellectual sensibilities and scruples you may have. Keep worshiping your false gods, offering up human and non-human sacrifices to them. And disappear from history, unloved and unlamented. In fact, you could do us all a favour and disappear now. It’s that simple. As highly respected climate scientist Ben Santer puts it, "Ignoring reality is not a viable survival strategy."
This is a powerful piece from Santer:
‘After decades of seeking to advance scientific understanding, reality suddenly shifts, and you are back in the cold darkness of ignorance. The ignorance starts with President Trump. It starts with untruths and alternative facts. The untruth that climate change is a “hoax” engineered by the Chinese. The alternative fact that “nobody really knows” the causes of climate change. These untruths and alternative facts are repeated again and again. They serve as talking points for other members of the administration. From the Environment Protection Agency administrator, who has spent his career fighting against climate change science, we learn the alternative fact that satellite data show “leveling off of warming” over the past two decades. The energy secretary tells us the fairy tale that climate change is due to “ocean waters, and this environment in which we live.” Ignorance trickles down from the president to members of his administration, eventually filtering into the public’s consciousness.
Getting out of this metaphorical darkness is going to be tough. The administration is powerful. It has access to media megaphones and to bully pulpits. It can abrogate international climate agreements. It can weaken national legislation designed to protect our air and water. It can challenge climate science and can tell us that more than three decades of scientific understanding and rigorous assessments are all worthless. It can question the integrity and motives of climate scientists. It can halt satellite missions and impair our ability to monitor Earth’s climate from space. It can shut down websites hosting real facts on the science of climate change. It can deny, delay, defund, distort, dismantle. It can fiddle while the planet burns.
I have to believe that even in this darkness, though, there is still a thin slit of blue sky. My optimism comes from a gut-level belief in the decency and intelligence of the people of this country. Most Americans have an investment in the future — in our children and grandchildren, and in the planet that is our only home. Most Americans care about these investments in the future; we want to protect them from harm. That is our prime directive. Most of us understand that to fulfill this directive, we can’t ignore the reality of a warming planet, rising seas, retreating snow and ice, and changes in the severity and frequency of droughts and floods. We can’t ignore the reality that human actions are part of the climate-change problem, and that human actions must be part of the solution to this problem. Ignoring reality is not a viable survival strategy.
Trump has referred to a dark cloud hanging over his administration. The primary cloud I see is the self-created cloud of willful ignorance on the science of climate change. That cloud is a clear and present threat to the lives, livelihoods and health of every person on the planet, now and in the future.’
In The Climate Commitment I pose the question ‘which is to be master’ – politics or physics? I answer in favour of a biospheric politics which is a self-mastery based on an awareness and recognition of physical and planetary realities. If we pose this question as an either/or between politics and physics, physics will always win. We should take care to remember that when it comes to defining precisely what we mean when we say that ‘politics is the art of the possible.’