I am afraid that I would suggest more caution in relation to addressing
these issues for a number of reasons:

1) I am profoundly sceptical of any claims for a scientific consensus on any
issue. The science behind the claims being made over climate change are much
less exact and much more ambiguous than they are being  presented to us.
Surely this consensus/consent must have been mostly manufactured :

"... the major decisions over what happens in [our] society ... are in the
hands of a relatively concentrated network of major corporations and
conglomerates and investment firms. They are also the ones who staff the
major executive positions in the government. They're the ones who own the
media and they're the ones who have to be in a position to make the
decisions. They have an overwhelmingly dominant role in the way life
happens. ... The control over resources and the need to satisfy their
interests imposes very sharp constraints on the political system and on the
ideological system.... there's two targets for propaganda. One is what's
sometimes called the political class. There's maybe twenty percent of the
population which is relatively educated, more or less articulate, plays some
kind of role in decision-making. They're supposed to sort of participate in
social life -- either as managers, or cultural managers like teachers and
writers and so on. They're supposed to vote, they're supposed to play some
role in the way economic and political and cultural life goes on. Now their
consent is crucial. So that's one group that has to be deeply indoctrinated.
Then there's maybe eighty percent of the population whose main function is
to follow orders and not think, and not to pay attention to anything -- and
they're the ones who usually pay the costs." (Noam Chomsky, 1992)

Is there a concern that a heavy indoctrination process is going on with us
in relation to climate change? I am not denying climate change (that would
be on a par with holocaust denial these days), but I am very sceptical as to
how this issue has reached the social and political agenda in the way that
it has and with the strength that it has.

2) I am deeply uncomfortable with critics being  vilified for expressing
their views (perhaps through a concern for self-preservation!). It is
increasingly difficult to question the truth claims being made around
climate change and that is dangerous and foolish given the need for critical
rigour in scientific work. Anyone who dares question the veracity of the
climate change thesis at any level risks being ridiculed and ostracised. In
a recent posting to our list we are being asked to view such critics as "the
enemy" - a somewhat combative and devisive metaphor. It is politically very
dangerous if we find ourselves unable to question any commonly held belief,
whatever that belief might be.

3) For me the concern about 'global warming' and 'climate change' is the
wrong place to start and could not galvanise all the people I know in our
community psychology networks. If we had taken up this call in our networks,
local groupings and our journals we might have found ourselves jimmied into
supporting BAE's (UK arms manufacturer) Green initiatives last year to
develop lead-free bullets, recyclable explosives, more efficient jet fuel
for fighter planes, biodegradable landmines, 'bang free bombs', hybrid
engined tanks and so on. Surely, we would have no option but to applaud them
for doing their bit if Climate Change became a central concern. Acquiring an
'environmentally friendly' branding now appears to be masking all sorts of
ghastly corporate social and state sponsored crimes against our communities.
I am reminded of the claim in a TV advert that a certain car manufacturer (I
forget which) in the UK had have reduced their carbon emissions from one of
their manufacturing sites by around 30% (I forget how much). They failed to
point out that this percentage reduction in emissions was exactly the same
as the proportion of the workforce who were sacked from the site when it was
downsized and production was moved overseas where labour was cheaper!
Capitalists are forever looking for ways to dress their reasons for closing
down factories and throwing soiled workers onto the scrap heap. The Climate
Change lobby could well have landed them one on a plate. I wonder what sort
of monstrosities we might find our own adoption of Green credentials might
mask.....Incidentally, my university employer has recently decided to use
the 'Green' argument as a rationale for moving staff out of their single
occupancy offices and into shared offices - apparently better for the
environment (co-incidentally saving the university massive revenue at the
same time). So, in my institution 'Going Green' is being used to justify
what many of my colleagues see as an erosion of their working environment
and the use of the green argument gives them little ground for a moral
defense i.e., you can't f~~k with the planet.

4) As well as there being powerful vested interests of the petrochemical
industry in suggesting climate change is not happening, there are equally
powerful vested interests of that industry (and others that act as proxies
for the military-industrial complex) in suggesting it is happening. Indeed,
I would say the latter are the greater. Carbon credit trading is a tool that
is increasingly being tailored to further attack and exploit the poor and
the clmate change agenda is increasingly morphing into a potentially
powerful future damper on the economies of China and India when they
threaten the economic, cultural and military hegemony of the USofAmerica and
(less so) Europe in the future. The danger of galvanising around 'climate
change' is that we might find ourselves with some very strange bedfellows
and wake up on a series of unexpected bandwagons in the future.

5) For me the central issues of concern are the disasterous consequences of
unrestrained, free-market capitalism, consumerist culture that encourages
waste (both material and human) on a gargantuan scale and social
inequalities so naked and noxious that the threat they pose to our sense of
collective humanity usurps, in my mind, any concern for the survival of our
species. Green issues are embedded in all these concerns (particularly the
second), but are not what drives them.

p

ps 100% of the ideas in my email have been recycled from other sources

Paul Duckett
Division of Psychology and Social Change
Manchester Metropolitan University
England
Phone +44 161 247 2552
Fax +44 161 247 6364
email: [log in to unmask]

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