Because it is a simple fact of physics, that the more carbon dioxide
there is in the atmosphere, the hotter the world becomes, the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, (IPCC) concluded it's
latest report that, with very high confidence, Man Made Climate Change
is
“a threat to human well being and planetary health. There
is a rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a livable and
sustainable future for all.,,,,,,, The choices and actions implemented
in this decade will have impacts now and for thousands of years.” (paragraph C1 of headline statements IPCC AR6 Synthesis Report)
So
the worlds leading scientists, who have been studying our home planet
all their lives, couldn't make it any clearer. Drastically and rapidly
reduce green house gas emissions or we're F***ed.
What has been
the response to this report and the news that we are messing up the
planet for at least the next thousand years? ………..Well, here in the UK, tackling man made climate change is just
not a vote winner. A threat to human well being and planetary health is
deemed un important compared to rising bills, a failing health service and no longer being able to
afford a holiday to Disney World. Meanwhile, Global oil consumption
continues to rise, CO2 levels continue to increase and the world gets
hotter at rates faster than the scientists predicted. It's like that old
comedy sketch were the news presenter says. “The Government has
announced that due to an incoming asteroid, the world will end at 2pm
next Thursday. Here are the football results. Arsenal 2 Man Utd…..”
Why
are the vast majority of people, governments and political parties, not
taking man made climate change seriously? There are several factors and excuses, all of which are unjustifiable.
1) It's Historically Unprecedented
Nothing like this, on such a large scale, has ever happened before.
There is no text book, historical records, or even any religious
guidance on how to handle such a global modern problem. But just
because it has never happened before, doesn't mean it isn't happening
and we can ignore it;
2) The implications are so serious it's almost incomprehensible.
It is almost unbelievable that our civilization, which is currently
based on cheap energy provided by fossil fuels, is about to wreck the
world. Can it be true that every time we do such innocent and mundane
things such as use our cars, cook our diners or heat our homes, it
causes irreparable damage? Well individually it has very little effect ,
but when 7 billions of us continue to dump CO2 into the atmosphere and
that CO2 will stay there for centuries, it will wreck the world.
3) It's so very inconvenient Changing
our highly enjoyable, comfortable, happy way of life is just such a
pain. It will upset the great, high consuming, high emitting party we
(especially in the developed western world) have been having. It's not
something any of us wants to do, but to continue burning fossil fuels is
irresponsible and will kill billions when vast areas of our planet ie
the tropics are no longer habitable. We would be causing a global mass
murder, a slow motion holocaust, a famine, a destruction of
unprecedented scale. Think this is an exaggeration - last year the
heatwave killed 62,000 in Europe alone, and this doesn't include heat waves in India
or floods in Pakistan Libya, wildfires in Hawaii, Greece, US or storms all around the world. As matters will only get worse, or more likely, much worse,
the excess deaths year on year will soon reach millions.
,
4) Carbon dioxide is invisible.
Unlike smoke, litter, plastic in the oceans, sewage in rivers, you
cannot see green house gases. It doesn't make a dramatic photo like black smoke, filth in rivers or piles of rubbish on a beach. Therefore emissions are much more
difficult to witness and promote as something that we should take seriously - its easy to dismiss, as its not visible. We can’t see it on social media, so it easy to ignore it. However, in the long term
it is as deadly as smoke, and will not clear when the fire is out. It
will linger, and because planetary processes take centuries to scrub it out of the air, it will continue to warm the world.
5) Climate change proceeds at a slow pace that is difficult to perceive.
Until recently climate change has only been visible in data, charts and
graphs. It is impossible to experience climate change directly as
events such as wild fires, heat waves and floods occur, but in far parts
of the world, and then pass and normal weather resumes. Only over
decades can frequency trends be determined. Our memories are inaccurate, we remember only what we want to remember, so weird weather banished from our minds. Man made
climate change is perceived as important, but not urgent and because it
takes thinking and imagination, it's hard to comprehend. Also, why be
bothered about the serious consequences, when they will only arise
after the next election or after your life time?
6) There has not been, and there is unlikely to be, a single massive disaster event.
It is unlikely that there will be a Chernobyl, or a Great Stink or
Titanic event that will make the seriousness of inaction concerning man
made climate change undeniable to all. The slowly worsening climate will
creep up the temperature scale and one generation after another will
look at old photos and films not really knowing when it started or how
to get everyone to act. Perhaps if London and a few other cities flooded
at the same time, or the Matterhorn collapsed or a world wide famine
occurred, perhaps the majority would finally demand action. However no
such cataclysm is likely to occur so its full steam ahead in our old
mindset, thinking planet earth is unsinkable.
7) Technology will Solve the problem.
"No need to act as someone has just invented…." These story's are
common and provide the comfort, but the false assumption, that we can
invent our way out of any problem. Carbon sequestration, fusion power,
hydrogen fuel, geo engineering - none have been tested or developed at a
global scale and who is going to pay for it? If there's no profit it
wont happen. The easiest solution remains to stop burning fossil fuels
and switch to renewables supported by nuclear. Why not just do that?
8) Targets have been set.
Great news, there's no need to act as in 2050 we will be at net zero,
So we can all ignore the problem today and keep on emitting. It’s a pity
CO2 levels will be rising until the year 2049 and that the next
generation will have an even hotter world and an almost impossible
problem to solve.However don't worry as in 2049, the Government will
set new targets so the problem will be solved! Perhaps someone might
have realized by then that targets are not action and achieve nothing.
9) We can adapt. Here, man made climate change isn’t even a problem. We will adapt to the hotter world and crank up the air conditioning. However, those that cannot adapt will suffer and perish and continuing emissions means the world will just get hotter and hotter and hotter until we are fully adapted to a planet that is just a rock devoid of all life apart from ourselves. Science fiction? Well it's true that millions of years ago, in the Eocene and Permian, the earth was much warmer than today and despite mass extinction,s life continued. But whether today's ecosystems can cope the unprecedented rate of change caused by man made climate change is unknown and the risks of our scorched earth experiment are existential. Why take the risk and isn't it more comfortable to live in today's world or tomorrows hot house?
10) Man made Climate Change isn't commercial. Newspapers, magazines, media must make money (or get clicks on phones) to survive, and most people don't want to know that we are trashing the planet let alone pay for this bad news. So this commercial reality means the seriousness of global warming is underplayed in the media and a bias emerges towards towards new tech solutions, a down playing of the data and more generally, a lack of acknowledgement that anything can be done, There seems to be a mind set of "keep the readers happy" or people will go elsewhere. The historian Neil Oliver has recently called for the media to stop terrifying people with scare stories - ie we don't want to know! Therefore it is only "not for profit organisations" such as the United Nations that are presenting the true picture.
11) Our selfish genes mean we act in our own self interest, rather than for the common good.
In the competition of life and our biological drive to pass on our
genes, we delude ourselves that we are the most important thing in the
universe and prioritize our own needs over those of others. Therefore as
long as I’m doing great, what does it matter about others and future
others? Co operating at a species level doesn't come naturally to us and
so far there is no sign that our intelligence will conquer our nature .
However evolution will teach us co operate or our population will collapse.
12) Why should I act when the Chinese aren’t.
To stop climate Change everyone must act, now. This means taking personal responsibility and accepting you are part of the problem, but also part of the solution. Expecting others to solve the problem and doing nothing yourself is not going to work. Inactivity by others
is not an excuse for not acting your self. If every one uses this
excuse, nothing happens and we all burn (as the UN has pointed out).
13) Doomster dismissal. Those who
are making a fuss can be dismissed as, emotional, on the spectrum,
cranks or over exaggerating, It's the usual tactic that if you can't
defeat the argument, rubbish the messenger. However you can't change the
laws of physics, and more CO2 in the atmosphere means it just gets
hotter and hotter and hotter, whoever is annoyingly banging on about it.
14 Environmental protesters are hypocrites as they use oil based products too. To accuse protesters as hypocrites, ie someone who says you are doing something wrong, when they are doing exactly the same thing, does not change the fact that both you and them are doing a something wrong. It may give you an excuse, or comfort, for continuing your bad action, but it also shows that deep down you know it is morally wrong and both you and the protesters need to change their behavior.
15) I refuse to be guilty for the way I live. Calling for action on climate change is not about making any one feel guilty. The past is the past and cannot be changed. Being a boomer I've racked up my carbon foot print with global travel and driving all over the country. Its about changing now for the future, of doing the right thing rather than the easy thing, about making the world better not worse.
16) Economics and democracies are not the best system to bring about swift change. Our civilization needs energy and our economic systems are set up to always favour the cheapest option. Fossil fuels are cheap. They come out the ground almost ready to use, and because we can vent the waste produced after use into the atmosphere for zero cost, this form of highly concentrated energy is cheap. Therefore our economies have been build on cheap fossil fuels, as the future costs of dealing with the problems of global warming are all future costs for some else to pay. Economists are now saying that these hidden costs (externalities, because they are external to the market) should be paid for by introducing a carbon tax that can be used to pay for the transition to renewables (estimated at an Annual global bill of $2.7 trillion to reach net zero by 2050); but who will vote for this increase in tax, especially when climate change does not directly effect their lives? Only by educating the majority of the long term implications of man made climate change, and the need to act swiftly for the benefit of everyone, will a democracy embrace the transition to renewables. The earth is priceless, out side of economics and you can't buy another earth.
17) Whats the cost benefit analysis of tackling man made climate change - isn't it cheaper to do nothing? How do you put a cost on the world you live in, the lives wrecked or the damage caused by heat waves, fires, storms, floods and ecosystem collapse? The situation is so risky that we can't afford to wait for more data. What is obvious is that the longer you put off making a decision to solve a problem, it will get more and more expensive, Do you fix a roof at the first sign of a leak, or wait until all the timbers are rotten too?
18 Man made global warming is a long term problem. The current UK Tory Government is opening up new oil fields and coal mines because their decisions are based on a 1 year time frame ie the 2024 general election. The UK Labour party, that will probably be elected, will have a 5 year decision making time horizon. Environmentalists have a 25 year mindset and scientist take a long term 75 - 1000 year time frame. With this in mind it can be understood why everyone is disagreeing. But which is the most intelligent perspective? As the issue is so serious, I'm with the scientists.
19 The green policies are being portrayed as infringements to civil Liberties. The introduction of the Ultra low emissions zone to all of London has been imposed on Londoners with high daily charges and little public debate. Resistance to this well meaning but clumsy, and for some punitive, policy, has been seized upon by the political right, as a policy of those in power reducing our freedom in order to reduce pollution and achieve net zero. This highlights that in a democracy, the majority of people must accept the need for change, and policy must be inline with the demands of the people. Therefore debate and education and general acceptance must proceed green policies. Green policies are not about infringing freedoms, they are about protecting our future and the planet in which we live.
20) it’s the economy Stupid. Because most
lack the comprehension, imagination and intelligence to grasp the
reality that climate change will, at a minimum radically alter, and at
worst destroy our civilization, we continue to plough on full steam
ahead with our same old policies head long into disaster. When it comes
to man made climate change, there is a leadership vacuum and democracy
is unlikely to deliver one. No wonder our young people are losing faith
in politics.
For all of the above reasons we lack the moral
courage to speak the truth about how we are living and its consequences.
We lack the bravery to acknowledge reality and accept responsibility
for what we are doing to our world.
To spare ourselves the mental discomfort,
we adopt an intellectual blindness. We veil the unpleasant truths from view by
half closing our eyes – and our minds. We make panicky excuses and shrug
off undeniable facts with words like adaption, net zero, and
sequestration, knowing full well that the only answer is to change our highly
damaging life styles and stop burning fossil fuels. We steer around the
subject and In order to live with ourselves, we have to smear the reality
out of recognition with verbal camouflage and techno babble.* We fight to maintain our delusion.
Such a response is only human, but the sooner we all accept the consequences of inaction, and take meaningful steps to sustainability by drastically reducing our CO2 emission, the better for humanity, the planet and the future.
I don't like it, I don't suppose you like it, but we have no other option.
*Adapted from the writings of Kravchenko, a perpetrator of the Holomodor. Please don't fall into the same mind set that killed 4 million people, by taking their food away.
PS if you come across "Its all a hoax designed to control us" - just ask who ever is saying it for their reasoning and evidence. It's then easy to point them in the direction of reality..
