http://eatthestate.org/
Eat the State! Vol. 10, Issue #22 6 July 06
Preparing For an Inconvenient Future
Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" is a commendable movie, not least
for its attempts to educate, rather than terrify, people about the
facts and consequences of global warming. In particular, Al Gore
specifically warned against justifying inaction first by denial (the
platform of most American politicians), then by despair. Instead, he
concluded the movie by listing actions that individuals and societies
can take to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. To see specific
suggestions, visit www.climatecrisis.net and read Colin Wright's
thoughtful article in the last issue of Eat the State! ("What would
Gandhi drive?" ETS! vol. 10, no. 21 <http://snipurl.com/std1>).
Making valiant efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions immediately
is not only a good idea, but a necessity.
We must not confuse this imperative, however, with a solution to the
problems of global warming, for at least three reasons. First, not
all of the means within our technological grasp for reducing
emissions are necessarily wisely employed toward that end, even if we
grant that they will have the magnitude of effect that Gore credited
them with--which is far from certain. Thus, in a movie graphic
showing how carbon emissions could be reduced to 1970 levels, a
considerable chunk of reduction was attributed to carbon
sequestration, the viability and long-term consequences of which are
hotly debated. We must be careful not to make matters worse in a
desperate effort to make them better. Second, even if carbon dioxide
emissions were immediately reduced to 1970 levels, the long time
periods required for the Earth system to respond to that decrease
will result in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations that
nonetheless continue to increase for decades to come. Remarkably,
although Gore correctly related higher average global temperatures to
higher atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations, not emissions, this
response lag was not addressed in the movie. Third, various global
feedback mechanisms affected by higher temperatures may result in
further increases in temperature or greenhouse gas concentrations
that are not a direct function of human activity. Although these are
notoriously difficult to predict, possible examples include greater
retention of solar heat due to changes in cloud and ice cover, or
release of methane, a more potent though shorter-lived greenhouse gas
than carbon dioxide, from melting permafrost.
In short, controlling emissions is only part of the necessary
response to the problems confronting us. A second part of that
response is to prepare for the predictable consequences of global
warming, starting immediately. The environmental movement must
incorporate such preparations into its agenda, not in place of but
alongside attempts to attenuate climate change. Limiting our response
only to attenuation is naive, if not palliative and fatalistic.
What is it that we should be preparing for? The melting of ice sheets
and glaciers is expected to result in a rise in sea level that will
render uninhabitable low-lying islands and coastal regions, thus
creating a refugee crisis on a scale perhaps never before seen in
human history. We must begin planning for these refugees now. It is
anticipated that greater average surface temperatures will fuel more
violent storms, including tornadoes and hurricanes. Having seen the
chaos and tragedy resulting from Katrina, as well as the ineptitude,
profiteering, and racism of the American government's reaction,
surely we should begin preparing a better response now. Overall
changes in regional weather patterns, including in some places an
increasing frequency of droughts, will dramatically affect the
availability and distribution of water and agriculture. Only advance
planning can mitigate the tragedies these changes imply. And of
course, unless we begin preparing now, all of these anticipated
effects will likely lead to major conflicts among peoples and nations.
Perhaps more subtly, our preparations must embrace changing how we
think. First and foremost, we must not perpetuate the myth that the
problems we face can be addressed without major changes in our
lifestyles and cultures. This is an error with which Gore's film
flirts. But if we begin the debate by denying the necessity of major
changes, we relieve the debate of both its urgency and its point.
Pathos and panic are not the necessary corollaries of recognizing
this fact; we must instead learn to represent the necessity and
achievability of these changes. Second, global warming and its
consequences cannot be countered effectively if we limit our
deliberations only to short time scales, for example, those of
election cycles. We must teach ourselves to think instead on decadal,
generational and longer time scales. We must furthermore set up
social and political structures that are recalcitrant to subversion
by short-term interests--which may mean bypassing many of the
structures readily available to us now. Third, a global problem
requires a global response. Individual, community-based or even
national responses, however useful, will be inadequate. A political
and social framework must be established that is not so much
international, as supranational. Relatedly, we can no longer afford
the ideological pretense that man is somehow apart from the rest of
nature. We are an ecological agent and subject to ecological forces.
Our humanity in no way exempts us. Debating the degree to which
global warming is due to human causes or natural variability is an
exercise in futility and inertia.
My point is not to stoke panic or castigate Gore's movie but to draw
attention to the scale of the problem before us. Our response cannot
focus only on alleviating the challenges of the future. We must also
prepare for them.
--Llyd Wells
>http://eatthestate.org/10-21/WhatWouldGandhi.htm
>(June 22, 2006)
>
>What Would Gandhi Drive?
>
>by Colin Wright
>
>I must admit I liked An Inconvenient Truth, the new movie on global
>warming featuring Al Gore (www.climatecrisis.net). To be sure, I'm
>still suspicious of his free market politics and corporate
>allegiances, but no one can fault Gore's dedication to environmental
>education. Particularly in a country that ranks last with China in
>concern over climate change, according to a recent BBC poll.
>
>Like any Hollywood tear-jerker, the movie has its hero, victims, and villains.
>
>Gore is the laser-lance-holding stoic hero, skewering White House
>rewritings of EPA reports.
>
>The victims are the future generations who will inherit the
>suffocating planet we are bequeathing them. Not just the 500 million
>refugees who will lose their homes after the ice atop Greenland and
>West Antarctic slips away into the oceans, raising sea level 20 feet.
>Not just the millions who may starve when their arid crops fail after
>the melting-glacier streams turn into trickles.
>
>But I also count among the victims, all the previous generations whom
>we are betraying by not giving a collective damn about the Russian
>Roulette we are playing with the planet. All the parents who shed
>blood, sweat, and tears to make a better life for their children. All
>the artists and scientists and revolutionaries who believed that
>culture and civilization were something worth devoting their lives
>to. Who cares any more, when the international film festivals and
>sports tournaments beckon? If global oil production really is peaking
>(www.peakoil.net), maybe it's time to shift some stocks to
>Exxon-Mobil?
>
>The villains are us. Especially here in the US, where we allow a
>rogue government to stymie any chance of concerted action to reduce
>greenhouse gases. Especially here in Corporatatopia where greed,
>political conservatism, and capitulation define the ethic of the day.
>
>Nevertheless, like any good drama, the movie offers the possibility
>of redemption to the viewer. I, for one, certainly left the theatre
>rededicated to doing what I can to slow, if not end, global ecocide.
>During the '90s, a bumper sticker occasionally seen on smaller, less
>auspicious cars protested the rise of the SUV:"What would Jesus
>drive?" A more appropriate bumper sticker these days might read: What
>would Gandhi drive?
>
>It's a sure bet that Gandhi (when he wasn't smashing imperialism)
>would be walking to work. But I bring up the "half-naked fakir"
>(Churchill's phrase) because I think inevitably the moral dissonance
>between our paper-thin ideals and our (in)actions will bring up the
>idea of civil disobedience in our auto-centric metropolises. When
>young people in particular wake up and realize we are not just
>leaving them trillions of dollars of unpaid debt, but a sinking
>Titanic with too few life boats, the wise among them will not be
>happy. In the absence of government benchmarks and regulations to
>reduce carbon dioxide outputs substantially in a timeframe of years
>and not decades, frustration will mount among the awake. We are
>already seeing bicycles-en-masse blocking traffic. Cyclists here must
>be wondering how Chicago can be planning 500 miles of bike paths,
>while here they they must risk life and limb on the commute.
>
>Of course, it will be necessary for activists to promote viable
>options in addition to direct actions. We will need new incentives to
>get people out of their cars: pipe dreams of 100 million cars running
>on hydrogen or biofuels are as unlikely to succeed as people
>commuting by jet-pack. This is because of the scaling problem: it
>would take decades to switch our car fleet over to something else.
>But we don't have decades. We are headed for a "liquid fuels crisis"
>because of the imminent peaking of global oil
>(www.energybulletin.net/16766.html).
>
>Burdens will need to be shared by all, including the corporate
>sector. Why not offer the 35-hour week (for 40 hours of pay) for
>eco-commuters to compensate them for the extra travel time? If the
>French economy can survive a 35-hour week, why not ours here in
>Seattle? Would the corporations leave us and head out of town? I
>doubt it. Seattle is a highly desirable area and will only become
>more so in the future, as rural areas became less able to prosper
>with the rising cost of energy.
>
>Gandhi is also more relevant today for other reasons. He thoroughly
>understood that British imperialism relied on "free markets" to
>undercut local economies. Thus he promoted a "home-spun" movement to
>counter the cheap Mancunian textile imports. Today these ideas of
>decentralization are gaining more currency in the peak oil movement,
>where the end of cheap and reliable petroleum and natural gas are
>causing some to predict a curtailment or collapse of international
>trade (see, for instance, Julian Darley's Post Carbon Institute at
>www.relocalize.net).
>
>Gandhi's maxim to "live simply, so that others may simply live" is
>certainly more germane in a world of six billion (going on nine),
>given that the population was only around two billion in 1930. And
>now think of the industrialization going on in China and India. It's
>no wonder ecologists say we would need six planet Earths to support a
>population at Western standards of energy consumption. Something has
>to give. Let's hope it's not the planet. (Even if we can stabilize
>carbon dioxide levels at 550 ppm by mid-century, we are in completely
>uncharted territory.)
>
>Finally, as Gandhi realized, a spiritually satisfying life is based
>on material sufficiency, not material accumulation. And as
>psychologists are discovering, happiness lies in the relation of
>individuals to the social order: the more egalitarian the society,
>the healthier and happier the people. The quest for a car-free
>society need not be an unhappy one. Prepare your lances.
>
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