GLOBAL WARMING
suspicions and confusions
JUSTIN PODUR
____________________________
Justin
Podur is a frequent writer and translator
on Latin American issues. He maintains
ZNET's South
Asia, Africa, and Race Watch pages as well as the Colombia and
Chiapas Crisis pages.
In
recent years, a number of important contributions have influenced
the growing debate on global warming. Paul Baer and Tom Athanasiou's
book, Dead Heat, from a few years ago, was excellent.
Noam Chomsky's latest book, Failed States, mentions
global warming as one of the three more urgent problems humanity
faces (the others being war and the lack of democratic institutions
to deal with problems). George Monbiot's new book, Heat,
provides a workable set of proposals for stabilizing the climate
without draconian sacrifice (except commercial flight).
Al
Gore's film, An Inconvenient Truth cuts back and forth
between cogent explanations of climate science and self-aggrandizement
(Gore on the farm, Gore walking to the stage, Gore changing
planes at the airport, Gore doing product placement typing on
his Mac computer). Properly filtered, however, it provides an
excellent introductory lecture on climate change. I wish that
it had come from someone else, someone who hadn't vice-presided
over the Iraq sanctions regime and the bombing of Yugoslavia.
But the fact that Gore made it popular doesn't make it a sham.
The terms of discussion for any major problem are usually set
by elites, with the rest of us trying to sort out truth from
falsehood and sensible policy from corporate propaganda after
the fact.
Scientific
issues, like any issues, take work and time to understand. Those
who can't take the time to delve into the issues -- and no one
can delve into everything -- look for credible sources. To leftists,
Gore is simply not a credible source. He is seen as an apologist
for the powerful interests he served while in office and callous
about the people who suffered under his rule. Furthermore, leftists
are suspicious of any elite consensus, including a scientific
one. They know that dubious science is often trotted out to
state why some regressive policy or other is justified. Leftists
therefore need people credible to them to go back and do what
Gore and Flannery did -- to explain the basics of climate science.
Much of what they would explain would be the same as Gore does,
and the same ways -- but it would not come from a tainted source,
nor would it be tainted by political campaigning. Both Baer/Athanasiou's
Dead Heat and Monbiot's Heat accept the scientific consensus
on global warming and do not spend much time on the basic science,
leaving that field to people like Gore and popular science writers
like Tim Flannery, who wrote The
Weather Makers.
The
first problem for leftists trying to understand climate science
is that they cannot trust Gore and they cannot automatically
trust the scientific consensus. The next problem is that the
best-known proposed solutions for dealing with the problem are
flawed. The Kyoto Protocol, for example, is completely inadequate
for stabilizing emissions. Carbon emissions trading and markets
are designed to provide incentives to corporate emitters. Biofuels,
in the form of palm oil and sugarcane plantations, are helping
to displace peasants through paramilitary massacre in Colombia,
contributing to dangerous food shortages, and in any case cause
CO2 emissions just like fossil fuels do. If credible science
is mixed with dubious pro-corporate policy, which is what Gore
has to offer, leftists might feel the sensible thing to do is
reject the whole package.
They
need not do so, however. Monbiot's book, Heat, is principally
about climate policy, and what policies would be necessary in
order to stabilize the climate. He is not an advocate for carbon
markets, which he recognizes as providing incentives to corporate
polluters. What he does advocate, as Baer & Athanasiou advocated
in Dead Heat, is a per-capita emissions quota, the
same for everyone in the world. If only a certain amount of
total CO2 emission is compatible with a stable climate, then
the right to emit ought to be the same for everyone. Baer &
Athanasiou's book, and their website, ecoequity.org, discuss
a stabilization policy based on a per capita emissions quota.
They argue that, because people in poor countries emit much
less than their right and people in rich countries emit much
more, a credible stabilization policy would include both reduction
of emissions in the rich countries and the reduction of global
inequality. Monbiot's book focuses on feasible technological
and policy changes for bringing the CO2 emissions of first-world
countries down to the per-capita quota. By showing that the
worst emitters could achieve the necessary reduction without
significant suffering, Monbiot debunks the notion that stabilizing
the climate requires brutal austerity or the continuation of
third-world poverty.
Monbiot
is also clear on another point: that the impacts of global warming,
like environmental problems in general, are not the same for
everyone. Many environmentalists, including climate activists,
believe that because we all have to live on the planet, we can
all agree that environmental problems must be solved. But the
wealthy and powerful have always been able to insulate themselves
from the effects of environmental problems. They appropriate
the territories and resources they want and leave others to
starve or die. The hardest hit peoples, in countries like Bangladesh
and Ethiopia, are those who are already suffering tremendously.
Hurricane Katrina in the United States is another case of how
"natural" disaster does not unite elites with people
but, instead, can be used to entrench ever more regressive relations.
If
elites also control the parameters of discussion on a problem
such as global warming, they can be expected to advocate not
solving it, as they know their interests will be served regardless.
If elites are advocating solutions, they will advocate solutions
that will protect their interests, whether these actually solve
the problem or not. Advocacy of ignoring or denying the problem
is the model for parts of the petroleum industry, right-wing
politicians and movements, and their PR machinery, which Monbiot
calls "the Denial Industry". Advocacy of "solutions"
that serve elite interests is the model for advocates of carbon
markets and watered-down versions of Kyoto.
This
leaves leftists, who oppose elite agendas, with two options.
First, their suspicion of the sources on the science can lead
them to the position that the scientific consensus is wrong.
Alternatively, they can accept the science and then reject elite
proposals for dealing with the problem and propose alternative
policy suggestions in light of their own values and priorities,
which is what I believe Monbiot has done, and Baer/Athanasiou
before him.
Recent
essays by leftists Alexander Cockburn, Denis Rancourt, and David
Noble, in contrast, take the first position. They are reacting
to a recent change in elite strategy on the problem of global
warming. The initial elite strategy was that of complete denial,
and it was successful in delaying any action on climate change
for crucial years. The recent change of strategy by part of
the elite (prompted perhaps by increasing evidence in every
field that global warming is happening) seems to be to try to
co-opt and control the discussion, if not of the problem itself,
then of the possible solutions for it. These three activists
(Cockburn, Rancourt, & Noble, or CRN) have reasonable suspicions
of this rapid change of elite strategy and its expression in
media hype about climate change. Their reactions, however, are
in error. If their views are adopted by many leftists, elites
will be able to claim that leftists are anti-science and anti-green,
when what people most need are sensible green proposals that
are also in accord with values of justice, equality, and solidarity.
In
an essay in Counterpunch, Alexander Cockburn makes
a number of claims about climate science that indicate a dismissal
of the scientific consensus. He claims there is "zero empirical
evidence that anthropogenic production of CO2 is making any
measurable contribution to the world's present warming trend,"
for example. But the mechanism by which atmospheric CO2 causes
warming ("the greenhouse effect") is well understood.
So is the fact that anthropogenic production of CO2 is increasing
levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. And so, too, is the current
warming trend, which Cockburn acknowledges. Cockburn seeks to
break the chain of reasoning (from CO2 causing warming, to anthropogenic
increases of CO2 in the atmosphere contributing to warming)
by suggesting that anthropogenic emissions of CO2 do not change
atmospheric CO2 levels. He does so by referring to some data
on CO2 emissions and CO2 concentration in the atmosphere from
the 1920s and 1930s that say when anthropogenic emissions were
low due to the Great Depression CO2 in the atmosphere did not
change. He interprets this to mean that "it is impossible
to assert that the increase in atmospheric CO2 stems from human
burning of fossil fuels." But it is the very fact that
CO2 is long-lived in the atmosphere (compared to water vapour,
for example) that makes emissions of it such a serious problem.
Even if the data he presents are accurate (the most reliable
records of atmospheric CO2 begin in the 1960s) they cannot be
taken to mean what he says they do. They could, instead, simply
mean that there is a lag between changes in CO2 emission and
changes in atmospheric concentration. One analogy a reader of
the article at realclimate.org suggested was this: if you are
filling a bathtub and turn off the tap, the bathtub does not
instantly empty, nor does the fact that it doesn't empty make
it impossible to assert a connection between the tap and the
amount of water in the tub.
Cockburn
was also answered in more general terms by Monbiot, who cautioned
against dismissing an entire body of science with a series of
fairly random assertions. Some of Cockburn's specific scientific
claims were answered by climate scientists at realclimate.org.
Cockburn was using his scientific claims as part of a larger
argument that the market in CO2 emissions was like the market
in papal indulgences during medieval times -- a release for
people's consciences that made profits for elites (the church
in medieval times, corporations today) while exploiting people's
guilt (for sin then or emissions now) without fundamentally
changing anything. This valid point about carbon markets is
thus combined with a dismissal of climate science and global
warming as a serious problem using a number of false and discredited
claims as evidence. This is too bad, because it will make readers
doubt his other insights, and it abets the climate deniers.
Denis
Rancourt, a physics professor and activist at the University
of Ottawa, published a similar essay on his blog some weeks
ago. In it, he sets out some of the standard scientific claims
presented by denial industry spokespeople. These include notions
that water vapour and solar radiation are the real culprit,
not CO2 emissions, that warming is not such a big deal, and
other arguments. Realclimate.org explain how water vapour is
a greenhouse gas, and an important one, but it is much more
short-lived in the atmosphere than CO2, and this makes it a
"feedback," not a "forcing" like CO2 is.
Realclimate.org also explains solar forcing: There are fluctuations
in solar radiation, but they are not sufficient to explain the
warming trend, nor would even the presence of significant solar
radiation fluctuations make CO2 irrelevant. They also explain
the lag between CO2 and temperature in the glacial record. Another
useful resource to accompany Rancourt's essay is this collection
of Q/A on "How to talk to a climate sceptic," by Coby
Beck.
Rancourt's
essay ends with a long list of "selected supporting references,"
but there are no citations for his individual claims, and therefore
no way of knowing what references he has selected or whether
it actually supports what he is saying. In between making his
own scientific claims, which we are supposed to accept on his
authority as a physicist, he argues that scientists are not
to be believed and the scientific consensus is not to be trusted
because "scientists are simple beings" who follow
the herd. There is a contradiction here, between Rancourt making
scientific claims in his blog, which we are supposed to accept
because he is a scientist, and his attacking all scientists
and all of science as conformist and conservative, which we
are to accept on his authority, perhaps because of his inside
knowledge of scientists.
I
disagree with Rancourt on this entire issue of science. While
science can be manipulated and a few scientists can always be
found to provide the right statement for the right price (whether
on climate, tobacco, or pharmaceuticals) I believe there are
some things that can be known about the natural world, and scientists
have uncovered some of these things, including about the climate
system. How this knowledge is spun or used or ignored is another
matter. But the appeal of science is that, given time and effort,
we can understand things about the world. While this is no reason
to completely defer to scientists, it is reason to give weight
to arguments that are supported by the cumulative efforts of
thousands of people who have spent time and care looking into
an issue -- more weight, in any case, than arguments recycled
from the petroleum-funded denial industry.
In
contrast, Rancourt's anti-science arguments suggest that there
is no way to get at an objective understanding of the climate
or, by extension, any other situation. Rancourt leaves readers
to accept only his authority. The political or policy core of
Rancourt's essay is, again, an attack on CO2 markets. He advocates
various leftist policies, and argues that leftists should advocate
these without reference to CO2 emissions or global warming,
which is, to him, a dangerous diversion. By combining discredited
scientific claims about global warming, an attack on science
itself, and leftist positions on numerous issues, Rancourt has
associated decent left positions with discredited and false
claims and arguments.
David
Noble, a friend of Rancourt's, a professor at York University
and an activist, was, according to Rancourt's blog, inspired
by Rancourt to write about the "global climate coup"
for Canadian Dimension. Noble's argument is that global
warming politics have derailed the global justice movement and
diverted it into the dead end of CO2 markets. He shows how elite
think-tanks and corporations have endorsed "solutions"
to global warming that will increase their profits and power.
His research on the corporate connections of various groups,
first of the denialist persuasion, and then of the market-solutions
persuasion, is useful. But he loses most of his credibility
in his introduction, which implies that global warming is a
funny joke:
"Don't
breathe. There's a total war on against CO2 emissions, and you
are releasing CO2 with every breath. The multi-media campaign
against global warming now saturating our senses, which insists
that an increasing CO2 component of greenhouse gases is the
enemy, takes no prisoners: you are either with us or you are
with the "deniers." No one can question the new orthodoxy
or dare risk the sin of emission."
His
credibility is further harmed by his conclusion, in which he
calls Monbiot a dupe of the elite group that is creating hype
about global warming, whose message Monbiot "unwittingly
peddles with such passion." Noble calls Monbiot's book
"embarrassing in its funnelled focus and its naive deference
to the authority of science . . . as if there was such a thing
as science that was not also politics." Unlike Cockburn
and Rancourt, Noble does not get into dubious scientific claims,
but he does present global warming as if it is a diversionary
elite campaign, or simply a joke, and not a serious problem.
He could have made his case that elites are trying to divert
attention from actual solutions to the problem (the substantive
part of Monbiot's book, only the introduction of which Noble
quotes) and towards creating new markets and new privileges
and powers for themselves without so flippantly dismissing concern
about the climate, presenting that concern as nothing more than
an elite agenda, or suggesting that all science was politicized.
By doing so, he associates a useful critique of elite cooptation
of climate politics with a misrepresentation of the problem,
its urgency, and the potential for solutions.
The
strength of Monbiot's book is its presentation of a set of policies
that could stabilize the climate in accord with values of justice
and equity. Monbiot is as hard on phoney capitalist climate
schemes as Cockburn, Rancourt, or Noble (CRN) are, but he does
not rest his political analysis on an attack on a body of science
(as Cockburn and Rancourt do), or on an attack on science itself
(as Rancourt and Noble do). The problem with these authors'
mixing sensible policy proposals and cautions with false scientific
claims and an anti-science tone is analogous to the problem
of Gore's mixing of sensible science with elite agendas. If
suspicion of Gore and elite CO2 market advocacy can drive leftists
like CRN towards a position denying that global warming is a
problem, then a reliance on discredited science or anti-science
positions by leftists like CRN can drive people away from leftists
(and leftists certainly don't need more ways of driving people
away). The need is for leftists to understand and explain the
science of global warming and to think of and advocate proposals
for solving the problem in accord with values of equality and
solidarity. Both Monbiot and Baer/Athanasiou have done some
of that work. Instead CRN reject the science and dismiss the
solutions like Kyoto or CO2 markets not because they are inadequate
(which they are) or because they serve elite agendas (which
they do), but because they conclude that there is no problem
to solve in the first place. CRN are trying to open the wrong
debate. Rather than a debate over the validity of discredited
scientific positions, what is needed is a debate on how to resist
the elite agendas that have led to the warming, then to its
denial, and that now seek to co-opt movements for change. On
this, I hope CRN might eventually agree.
This piece
is published with the permission of
ZNET. Justin
Podur can be reached at justin@killingtrain.com
.
