I posted this on the CAGlist today, which might be of some interest to colleagues
A RESPONSE TO STEPHEN JOHNSTON
The polemic by Stephen Johnston about the need to abolish Geography departments is extraordinarily helpful to Geography; the deductive logic within the basic premises and deductive logic not only display an alarming degree of naivety, they illuminate exactly why the continued linkages between physical and human geography (themselves not terribly helpful labels) in terms of global climate change are not only necessary, they are becoming increasingly vital.
Let us start with the basic premises of Professor Johnston’s arguments – because Geologists and Physical Geographers are intimately concerned with global climate change and there is an urgent need to understand similar eventualities that have occurred in the past, they need of urgency to be joined together into one super-discipline and this axiomatically implies that Geography departments must be done away with…. Human Geography being unable to survive on its own. Examined purely in terms of its own internal logic then, two plus two equals five - not terribly scientific.
Standing back from the flaws of logic inherent to this argument, it is interesting to note the hubristic Archimedean take on Geology per se: “Earth Scientists need to be strong contributors to debates and discussions concerning the magnitude and consequences of climate change. We need to be at the table during deliberations over what aspects of climate change can be fought, and what must be accepted as inevitable.” That would be, apart from those Geologists intimately involved in the other side of the debate, facilitating the exploitation of oil reserves (tar sands ring a bell, Stephen?), helping to build huge and unsustainable dams, working out the ‘best’ places to locate nuclear power stations in the Pacific Fire Rim, and so forth. Human Geographers and their colleagues in Physical Geography understand that it is specifically this kind of complex, social systemic environment that will determine how global climate change is approached and that the meaningless (dare one say white, masculinist?) attitude to scientific determinism that Stephen manifests is part of the problem, not the answer.
It should by now have become obvious that the intellectual, social and political struggles over global climate change are being determined by an unhealthy mixture of vested commercial interests and identity politics, not data - if nothing else, the so-called ‘scandal’ over the UEA e-mails surely proved this. Scientists, activists and academics alike are involved in what is increasingly becoming a bitter, pitched battle to sell the limits to consumption to societies that accept no limits to consumption. Are Geologists still so naïve as to believe that decisions on what to do about GCC will be determined by themselves as wise, objective, neutral scientists explaining the data? Because if so, they have a rude awakening ahead – and, supposing they were able to encourage their Physical Geography colleagues to secede and close down Geography, they would be doing it without the very people who might be able to help them understand how completely pointless much of their data was.
It beggars belief that any scientist concerned with global climate change in Canada particularly could still believe that if they drift, mild and Christ-like through the masses, bestowing data like manna to the unbelievers, that a politician like Stephen Harper will pay any attention at all. Professor Johnston may remember the way in which the Conservative government killed the Climate Change Accountability Act in the Canadian Senate in 2010, which would have mandated Canada to reduce its emissions of GHGs – did his data not warn him that this might happen? Or perhaps he feels that scientists were insufficiently convincing, and that all they need to do is to speak louder and more frequently. If so, he should consult with his colleagues in Political Geography, who would be able to tell him exactly why this won’t work. In Canada and the USA there is a growing ideological prejudice against all and any scientific data that supports global climate change and it is being encouraged by powerful politico-commercial hybrid lobbies at the highest levels in capitalist countries. If Earth Scientists want to negotiate and overcome these barriers then they are going to need the active assistance of their social science colleagues, rather than inventing spurious reasons to close them down.
Finally, it is interesting that Professor Johnston that uses the example of Marland Billings at Harvard to make his point; if Marland Billings had instead used his influence to have Economics at Harvard closed down instead of Geography, then neither ourselves as GCC-concerned social scientists nor Professor Johnston and his earth science colleagues might be in the parlous situation we find ourselves in today. If Professor Johnston would care to contact me personally, then I could explain to him why it is that the cargo-cult of neoliberal economics (whose fake shibboleths continue to poison politics and society globally) is the main enemy we face today, he as an Earth Scientist and me as a Political Economist – and why the data supporting that contention is as undeniable as it is politically unpalatable.
Regards,
Dr Jon Cloke
Lecturer/Research Associate
Geography Department
Loughborough University
Loughborough LE11 3TU
Office: 01509 228193
Mob: 07984 813681
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