To Hell in a Handbasket
I have been developing some presentations for international groups visiting Melbourne. One theme that interests many is Melbourne as a ‘liveable city’, and the challenges that liveability is facing. As a result, I have been summarising information about overcrowding, crime, reduced access to resources, especially water, and climate change. As I typed, I felt it was time for some lunch. I turned and looked out of the window: with that view, I could be living in paradise. However, reading about climate change had made me pessimistic. How can people who live in beautiful places like this be brought to understand we’re going to hell in a handbasket? [i]
I should start by getting the facts out of the way. Climate change is real. That’s not a debatable issue, it’s a fact. Once a student of geology, I know we have been aware for years that the earth’s climate changes cyclically. In the past 650,000 years or so, there have been seven major ‘ice ages’, times when glaciers advanced and the earth’s temperature dropped. In the past the major driver of these changes have been a function of the slight but significant variations in the earth’s orbit round the sun. If humans hadn’t been around, we would expect to be close to the high point in one of these cycles now. However, that is not what is happening, and instead we are seeing average temperatures moving close to one degree above normal expectations.[ii]
What is different this time around? It’s simple; it’s us. Instead of the carbon dioxide reaching a maximum of around 280-300 parts per million (ppm), the top of the climate change cycle, the level of carbon dioxide has continued to increase since 1950. Today it is about 400 ppm.
NASA’s Climate Change resource explains this clearly: “The heat-trapping nature of carbon dioxide and other gases was demonstrated in the mid-19th century. [iii] Their ability to affect the transfer of infrared energy through the atmosphere is the scientific basis of many instruments flown by NASA. There is no question that increased levels of greenhouse gases must cause the Earth to warm in response. Ice cores drawn from Greenland, Antarctica, and tropical mountain glaciers show that the Earth’s climate responds to changes in greenhouse gas levels. Ancient evidence can also be found in tree rings, ocean sediments, coral reefs, and layers of sedimentary rocks. This ancient, or paleoclimate, evidence reveals that current warming is occurring roughly ten times faster than the average rate of ice-age-recovery warming.” [iv]
You need more? A recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change examines the impact of an increase of 1.5°C. [v] They are not examining whether this might happen. They are saying we will have this increase; the challenge is to work out what the impact will be, and whether it is possible to ameliorate or stop further increases. We can see change already: in my home town, the daily temperature in late April was over 80°C, well above the average highs. The US Global Change Research Program says the same: “Earth’s climate is now changing faster than at any point in the history of modern civilization, primarily as a result of human activities. Global climate change has already resulted in a wide range of impacts across every region of the country and many sectors of the economy that are expected to grow in the coming decades.” [vi] The evidence is clear, unarguable, and convincing.
There are signs Donald Trump, once a trenchant climate change denier, might have begun to soften his views: “”I don’t think it’s a hoax, I think there’s probably a difference,” he told journalist Lesley Stahl. “But I don’t know that it’s manmade. I will say this. I don’t want to give trillions and trillions of dollars. I don’t want to lose millions and millions of jobs. I don’t want to be put at a disadvantage.” Mr. Trump added that temperatures “could very well go back” – although he did not say how.” [vii] There it is, the argument that accepting what is happening might impact on jobs and cost money! That is politically unacceptable. Here’s the acceptable view: Mike Pompeo praising melting arctic ice, which means we can exploit more and shorten travel![viii]
Like many things, Trump’s offering more nonsense. Not that there isn’t major expenditure required and associated changes in employment: addressing climate change will have a huge cost, and some areas of employment will decline, like coal mining. However, mining happens to be one area that has been in decline for some time, and in the US today solar energy accounts for more employment than hydro, nuclear, wind and coal – combined! [ix] More broadly, changing how we operate in many areas will see some activities decline, and new ones appear. Another industrial revolution: we’ve been through those before, and we are going through one today.
No, the nonsense comes about because the issue has been politicised, politicised in the sense it is yet another topic to drive a wedge between ‘progressive’ and ‘conservative’ thinkers. President Trump understands that well. Frighten workers in traditional areas with alarmist stories about ‘huge’ job losses; terrify taxpayers with the thought of ‘huge’ bills to be paid (huge is one of his favourite words). Two smart strategies to … to build a platform for re-election in 2020.
I will have the opportunity in blogs over the next year or so to dwell on the 2020 Presidential election, and the Republican and Democrat strategies to appeal to voters. However, this time around I want to focus on why so many people deny what they can see and constantly hear.
One commentator suggests that “there is a dangerous political polarisation around climate change. In one particularly disturbing US poll, attitudes to climate change were a better predictor of respondents’ political orientation than any other issue- including gun control, abortion and capital punishment. Denial of climate change is not just an opinion; it has become a dominant mark of people’s political identity.” [x] It is not just divisive. In his blog, George Marshall makes a telling point “Unfortunately one of the dominant values in the climate movement is a disregard, if not outright contempt, for the right-leaning mainstream and their concerns. Activists often talk with disgust of the selfishness, greed and stupidity of conservatives. This is intolerant and unpleasant. The denigration conveniently ignores the diversity of opinion and life experience among conservatives. A struggling rural family, an elderly Christian on a small pension, a community shopkeeper and a Wall Street Banker are combined into one faceless enemy.”[xi]
This demeaning of people who don’t share the ‘right’ views is part of the story, but only part. Rural conservative voters worried about work, about their economic future, and are likely to associate climate change as yet another example of how urban liberals are making things worse. You might think they would understand what is happening, as in many cases these are the same people who have seen the effects of environmental change: dust bowls, pollution and impoverished soils. However, they live with the daily unpredictability of the seasons, the storms, floods and droughts. The slow progress of climate change is harder to perceive when it is masked by the usual vagaries of the weather. Are storms worse? Wasn’t there heavier snow this year? The politicisation of views is enabled by the sub-liminality of the underlying changes.
If climate change is one of those phenomena where the rate of change is such that it remains essentially invisible, perhaps it is similar to growing older. Most of the time we are who we have always been: the shock of ageing does not come so much from looking closely in the mirror, though that can be an interesting experience. Rather it comes from being confronted with a photograph from the past, a version of yourself that can seem almost alien. Did I really look like that? We accommodate to how things are changing without paying much attention.
Of courses, there are other ways in which change takes place with our giving it attention. Some things slip past us because we are overwhelmed, not because the shifts are slight and subtle. The political landscape of the US has changed in fundamental ways, and attacks and provocations by the current President have almost drowned out any opportunity to grasp the details of what is taking place. It is easy to forget that the need to tell the truth has largely disappeared. Lying is normal, and each side accuses the others of promoting fake news at a time when objectivity is ridiculed. At the same time, the concepts of justice and fairness have also slipped away, to be replaced by legislation and judicial decisions determined on the basis of giving advantage.
Do facts still matter? I find it hard to type these words, but after some twenty-eight months of his presidency, Donald Trump has lied 10,000 times.[xii] He’s issued falsehoods at such a rate that we are falling into a horrible trap. If he says something, many of us will assume he is lying. On the other side his supporters will conclude that, once again, the forces of the lying opposition are trying to hide what the president is doing and achieving, seeking to smear and dismiss the truth of his words. Actions and decisions are being determined by what you choose to believe, and perceptions are more important than evidence, as similar divides appear in universities and schools, businesses and not-for-profit agencies. If you deny the world of facts, anything goes.
I’m looking outside again. I’ve loved watching birds for years, and one habit is to keep up with shifts in the bird population around me. Rare state birds, like lesser scaups, black-billed cuckoos, common mergansers, peregrine falcons and american bitterns have been seen already this year, but not by me. However, other birds I haven’t noticed very often before keep popping up: recently there were a pair of double crested cormorants on the pond and a ring-necked duck, a sanderling wandered in from the coast and a belted kingfisher stood on a garden branch.
So climate change isn’t affecting this area? Yes it is, but strangely, as it turns out some changes are to the advantage of North Carolina, with temperature shifts making it more attractive to species displaced from further south or north. On the other hand, birds require insects, and on that we hear a different story. I am sure you read the recent headlines, which tell us we are on the verge of an ‘insect apocalypse’, with 80% of insects currently disappearing, and all likely to have vanished by the next century. It’s not true, but more overblown commentary: as a recent review made clear “The claim that insects will all be annihilated within the century is absurd.” [xiii]
The story happens to be a good case study in how news amplifies information. There are studies that show insect declines, but they are piecemeal and are the result of studies looking for change in various species. However, while insects will not be wiped out in a century, “the factors that are probably killing off insects in Europe and North America, such as the transformation of wild spaces into agricultural land, are global problems. “I don’t see how those drivers would have a different outcome in a different area, whether we know the fauna there well or not” … Insects, though diverse, are also particularly vulnerable to such changes because many of them are so specialized.” [xiv] The facts are important, and should be studied further, not swept up in a panic driven by overblown accounts of badly reported research. But serious stories don’t sell ‘clicks’.
It seems we are back where we started. Climate change is happening, and the effects are already such that more change will take place before we can slow the process down, let alone reverse it. Caught up in a politically overcharged environment today, where it is just one element in the polarisation of attitudes, climate change is a weapon, not an issue of concern. It’s a convenient stick with which to beat the opposition, because whatever you say, the effects can’t easily be seen. Climate change is leading to global warming? There was more snow this winter than has been the case for years. Climate change is leading to global warming, as is evidenced by increased ocean temperatures and decreasing glaciers and ice fields. Climate change is leading to global warming? Did you see that television program where those experts argued: it was impossible to believe what any of them were saying – just look outside. Climate change is leading to global warming, and talking heads won’t change the process.
Climate change is unpredictable. Over the long run and without intervention, oceans will rise, and average temperatures will continue to increase. But the long run is long, probably very long, extending over tens or possibly hundreds of years. Based on what has been happening in the last decade, we’ll keep going as we have been, we’ll set up more commissions and reviews, and we’ll kick the can down the road a few more times. Emissions will continue to increase, but will be hard to see in Australian or America. Temperatures will continue to climb slowly but steadily, but we’ve had hot summers before. Weather events will become more extreme, but you have to wonder what it will take to reach the point where enough people say we have to act? [xv]
We’re going to hell in a handbasket? Yes, without action soon we will be, but not in a hand-basket. We’ll probably drive there in our comfortable, air-conditioned, petrol guzzling cars.
[i] A strange phrase, which some ascribe to Hieronymus Bosch, but he showed people going to hell in a hay waggon
[ii] Actually about 0.8°C: https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
[iii] From NASA: “In the 1860s, physicist John Tyndall recognized the Earth’s natural greenhouse effect and suggested that slight changes in the atmospheric composition could bring about climatic variations …”
[iv] Op cit: “National Research Council (NRC), 2006. Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years. National Academy Press, Washington, D.C.
[v] https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/
[vi] https://www.globalchange.gov/climate-change
[vii] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45859325
[viii] https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-un-report-on-extinction-vs-mike-pompeo-at-the-arctic
[ix] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-16/solar-beats-coal-on-u-s-jobs
[x] https://climatedenial.org/
[xi] Ibid
[xii] https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/29/politics/donald-trump-lies-washington-post/index.html
[xiii] Typical of many reviews of insect hysteria, https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/02/insect-apocalypse-really-upon-us/583018/
[xiv] Ibid
[xv] In my sillier moments, I think the trigger might be rising ocean levels flooding Mar-a-Lago!
