Dear Crisis Forum list and a few others by bcc
I’ve been watching this debate and now Steve’s contribution (below) recently with great interest but too pressed to have been able to engage. I regularly give talks on climate change and the drivers of consumerism that underlie what I call its cutting edge – i.e. consumerism defined as consumption in excess of what 10 bn people need for dignified sufficiency in life - and gave one in Edinburgh last night. It was largely a church and academic audience, with some grassroots eco-activists, and what strikes me these days in giving such a talk is that I no need to pussyfoot around apologetically in putting the view that, a) The science indicative of anthropogenic climate change is still pouring in, and b) Nobody wants to know about it: it has become politically unfashionable, swept aside by more immediate pressing concerns. I attach a lo-res PPT of the version I gave last night and I’m happy for people on this list to make use of the images in their own presentations if they so wish – what is the point of all this if we don’t share stuff? – though be mindful that I do not hold the copyright on most of these images. The gist of the talk is climate science and what the contrarians have done to the politics, wider implications of a stressed world including disease mutation and socio-economic turmoil, the question of what a human being is and the condition we are in, the creation of the consumerist condition by wants-creation marketing, the imperative of seeing through this to build resilience, and a set of slides about creating resilience using the www.galgael.org as a case study that I have not included here as they make the filesize too big and are slides specific to my own work and therefore not so potentially useful to others of you.
There was a senior banker, ex RBS, who now heads up the Church of Scotland’s enquiry into the state of the economy and banking there last night (Charles Munn). I asked him afterwards how he sees the current economic crisis, and he said the worry is what happens if all the measures being put in place don’t work. Reminded of a comment attributed to JK Galbraith speaking about the 30s (“the crisis came in waves”), I asked Charles what would happen if they don’t work. What would happen to money? He shrugged his shoulders: nobody really knows. What I do know is that at GalGael we get people coming along to our weekly Thursday community meals not because they are interested, but in some cases, because they are hungry: benefits not coming through because they’re being put under such pressure. I found myself last night, and similarly when giving the same talk in Dublin to the Irish Teachers Assoc 3 weeks ago, experiencing nem con when putting it to the audience that this was why “Europe” was created in the first place: to try and prevent the kind of economic meltdowns that, within the lifetimes of some of us, have seen European countries such as Greece run as dictatorships (note that figures in the Greek top military brass were dismissed about 10 days ago – Reuters put out a press release denying that this was out of government fears of a possible coup).
How is this relevant to climate change? Again, the link is what, if I might resort to theological language, I would call the emptiness of the human soul, or to computer language, to security vulnerabilities in our MS operating systems that make the psyche vulnerable to the blandishments of “greed is good” and so cause the body politic in democracies to vote for governments that deregulated that, in turn, further give the upper hand to corporate pushing of consumerism and lowering of their own ethical standards to the perilous level that we currently see in the loss of truth and integrity in public life.
Where does it leave us? Last night (and other times) I cited the current vibe on Crisis Forum in terms of most experts on this list considering that it’s a busted flush with climate change. That come what may in the come-to-pass is coming on. The issue that faces us is therefore one of resilience (as well as attempting what mitigation remains possible within the bounds of political possibility). We are a young species. The oldest fossils of homo sapiens sapiens are only 195,000 year old. There should be a couple of billion more years before our sun red dwarfs, and “all the seas gang dry/ my love/ an the rocks melt wi the sun” (Burns). Humankind remains a going concern. Are we going to descend into barbarity while nature sorts us out, as Steve’s message justifiably hints at? Or should we be piling our efforts in to deepening, for the first time in our modern cultural evolutionary history, our humanity? How do we deepen that humanity, to give not just resilience, but also life more abundantly? To me, that is the exciting question of our times.
Alastair
From: Discussion list for the Crisis Forum [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Wright, Steve
Sent: 09 November 2011 23:10
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: The dangerous limits of dangerous limits
Dear Brian
Its an interesting debate but a dangerous fallacy to think there are two clear lines of debate lying ahead. As humans we are not collectively very good at systems approaches and under pressure usually revert to pathways dependency - old behaviour which may be dysfunctional but gives the illusion of control.
Long before we reach the dangerous climate limits, public perceptions will be refocussed on the economic crisis since that has a much more immediate impact on their lifestyles now, today and tomorrow. It is the small giveaways that should show that geo-engineering will not be funded before the crisis bites - like the removal of the feedin tarriffs that had started to create the beginnings of a new green economy in the UK.
Given that Britain is amongst the top five arms manufacturers, military solutions to the effects of climate change will be far more persuasive since it can be dressed up under the security hat and that means more jobs and a clear rationale for the media and longer term survival of our military orientated manufacturing habits.
If we want to envision what is most probably going to happen next, it is worth looking to the authoritarian regimes of the South, many of whom we have propped up with lucrative security assistance packages. In those places, the people who see the criminal folly of the elite leadership: journalists, trade unionists and human rights defenders are not praised, admired or listened to - they become targets. It is no coincidence that our overseas aid budget is being specifically tied to initiatives that aid UK security and fight against terrorism.
My point in brief is that future decisions on climate change will not necessarily be made on rational grounds by rational actors but as these posts underline, elites with a vested interest in spinning the status quo to avoid market panic. The early break points on climate change will be in the South in terms of areas of inhabitation which will be inundated. The drum beat response there has not been massive processes of dam building, geo engineering or even levy formation but in places like the India Bangladesh borders - the creation of super walls to keep human movement out. The environmental movement has to become more mindful of the security industrial media entertainment university security complex and ways of calling it to account. Its activities are much more intensely funded that geo-engineering will ever be and if we believe the pathways dependency thesis, its power will continue to grow. That said: "security solutions" are more likely to muddy the water than "geo-engineering solutions" because that is where the money lies.
As a group I think we should snapshot the scientific debate at this critical moment of economic crisis in Europe and return to this space in five years time. If science and evidence based research has resulted in policy which is having a measurable impact on climate change, we are right to be encouraged. If however in 5 years time we have seen a massive deterioration in perceptions of international security and accompanying increase in the securitiization of new areas of our lives, it is probably time to change tack in terms of how we focus our limited collective energies . There are probably more dangerous limits than we really want to confront.
From: Discussion list for the Crisis Forum [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Brian Orr [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 09 November 2011 21:00
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: The dangerous limits of dangerous limits
Dear Chris,
One can discern two clear lines of debate lying ahead but it's not a case of 'never the twain shall meet'; it is a case of the two lines should never lose touch with each other. One is the technological debate about whether geoengineering can overcome the ever-increasing warming of our planet and the other is how we became trapped into signing up to the Faustian bargain of a good life and riches (for some) now for the price of a non-viable future? Tom Barker encapsulates the two lines of the debate in his short contribution today.
Leon Sealy-Huggins also focuses on the bifurcation in the debate and would seem to support your study strongly whilst not to being very persuaded of the urgency of 'instrumental' solutions. As might a priest undervalue the presence of a physician at a possibly fatal road accident!
The vital link between the two strands of investigation is that of the moral hazard embodied in deciding to go down the geo-engineering path. If we were to scrape through via geo-engineering and weren't totally chastened by the process then I am 'sure' our time will be up very shortly after because of inevitable 'confounding factors'.
i.e I'm convinced we have arrived at our current impasse essentially because the developed world has allowed itself to be corrupted by a set of totally false values - and much of the developing world is now in the process of going down the same path - and if these values aren't corrected fundamentally we'll find another route to an Armageddon soon enough.
But converting the world to saint-hood now will not wash the consequences of our past and present sins away. Massive and unprecedented changes in how we live must be implemented with all due haste - but, in my opinion, that will be very far from enough. We will need to interfere in the natural planetary processes with all due intelligence and as light a touch as we can get away with, provided we can still significantly reverse the current global warming trends.
Albert Kalio makes it quite clear we are not short of geoengineering tools to consider even though his contribution is largely focused on the situation in the Arctic. But this looks like being the first of the critical tipping points in the process Albert called "terminal climate change".
I feel that a long pause for breathe is needed while we try and absorb the many facets of the issue covered in Torsten Mark Kowal's wholly impressive contribution. What I find amazing is that the Guardian printed the stark conclusions of the International Energy Agency on irreversible climate change today, of all days!
Finally, I think the challenge for forumers is how to take the debate forward. I guess the first step forward is to try and frame the debate properly in the spirit of assuming the best possible motives on both sides - and accepting that 'my' side has to recognise which side the 'vicious gangsters' would side with!
Brian
On 9 Nov 2011, at 12:35, Christopher Shaw wrote:
Dear Brian
I totally agree. I call it a myth, but chimera will do just as well.
Talking to Brian Wynne during my viva he discussed an author (I can’t remember who) who suggests the apocalypse has already happened.
I believe it is too late, like yourself. I just want us to go down in the light of the truth about the murderous lies sold us by the vicious gangsters in charge of the world. I argue that those backing a geo-engineering solution are already too late, but would, by the propaganda of the deed, still be claiming large scale industrial technology is humanity’s saviour.
Do the geo-engineering solutions you favour guarantee to rescue humanity from terminal climate change?
Chris
From: Brian Orr [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 09 November 2011 11:48
To: Christopher Shaw
Cc: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: The dangerous limits of dangerous limits
Dear Chris,
"I conclude that the two degree limit is a construct which makes possible an international environmental regime safe for the interests of elite actors."
Sounds like a nice academic exercise but there's a huge elephant in the ointment I'm afraid. I'm contending here, and many who know a lot more about these things have said as much, that the two degree limit is a chimera.
The race has been lost and the forces we have unleashed means that the process called climate change is now unstoppable, unless we seek to counter them by employing geoengineering techniques on an unprecedented scale - a task I would assert is very likely to be beyond the powers of the 'international community' to organise.
In a nutshell, we've pumped huge quantities of CO2 into the atmosphere which will be trapping the sun's radiation for hundreds of years ahead while we remain continuing to increase the rate of CO2 emissions (despite the best efforts of venture capitalists), the world's forests are either retreating or are being razed to the ground, the phyto plankton of the oceans are being crippled through acidification and the Arctic sea-ice is shrinking faster than man-kind has ever experienced.
There never has been or could be a 'safe' temperature for the globe. With heavy crossing of fingers we could have - theoretically - calculated a 'safe' level of CO2 accumulated emissions - and that could have been heavily influenced by concerns over whether the poor 'should' be allowed to take a heavier toll than the rich. This was the debate which was won in the process of establishing the Kyoto protocol - but little good has it done anybody, unfortunately.
The two degree limit is a 'comfort blanket' for the 'elite actors' enabling them to deceive themselves that we can finesse our/their way around the virtual inevitability of the process we have had our backs behind ever since we learned to play with fire.
Brian Orr
On 9 Nov 2011, at 09:24, Christopher Shaw wrote:
Dear all
Mark has kindly invited me to share a very brief outline of my thesis with the list members, it being of some relevance to the issues discussed here. I think the best thing I can do is just post the abstract for the thesis, and if anyone is interested in further details I can email chapters/initial attempts at journal papers on to them. (I say, not as a boast but in support of my claims to the validity and quality of the thesis, that the examiners passed it without correction, and the external examiner Brian Wynne, probably the most respected scholar in the field of science and society studies, remarked it was as good as any piece of work he has examined).
Cheers
Chris
CHOOSING A DANGEROUS LIMIT FOR CLIMATE CHANGE: AN INVESTIGATION INTO HOW THE DECISION MAKING PROCESS IS CONSTRUCTED IN PUBLIC DISCOURSES
International climate change policy is predicated on the claim that climate change is a phenomenon with a single, global dangerous limit of two degrees of warming above the pre-industrial average. However, climate science does not provide sufficient empirical evidence to determine such an exact limit. In addition, a single limit incorrectly assumes that social and physical vulnerabilities to climate change are uniformly distributed in space and time. Public commentaries play an important role in shaping public engagement with an abstract concept such as climate change. This research project examines how public discourses construct the dangerous limits to climate change decision making process. My analysis draws on elite theory to argue that the two degree limit is a discourse which constructs climate change as a problem solvable within existing value systems and patterns of social activity. A comparison of primary and secondary data drawn from diverse sources is used to chart the key historical, social and cultural elements present in the construction and reproduction of the two degree dangerous limit discourse. The historical dimension of my analysis shows that public commentaries have ‘black boxed’ the genesis of the two degree dangerous limit idea. I demonstrate how claims of a consensus amongst elite policy and science actors are central to developing a dangerous limit ideology amongst influential public audiences. The two degree discourse elevates the idea of a single dangerous limit to the status of fact, and in so doing marginalises egalitarian and ecological perspectives. I conclude that the two degree limit is a construct which makes possible an international environmental regime safe for the interests of elite actors.
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