Green Army: Persons of Interest
Everyone is entitled to their own opinions,
but they are not entitled to their own facts.
— Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1927 – 2003)
Naomi Oreskes (1958):
In recent months 14 states have introduced or passed laws weakening labor protections for minors, even in notoriously dangerous industries, such as meatpacking.
Nonenforcement of existing laws that limit the hours and types of work that can be performed by kids is also on the rise.
This past year the number of minors illegally employed—including children as young as 13—increased by 37 percent. …
Advocates of weakened protections for children claim that the states—not the federal government—should decide; that attempts to regulate the workplace represent a federal power grab; and that the defenders of strict limits on child labor are socialists …
(Child Labor Laws Under Attack, Scientific American, September 2003, p 82)
A Part of the Solution
My book
Merchants of Doubt was an attempt to understand the explosive mix that has developed around the question of climate change, and the ways in which science and politics have collided in this domain.
One of the things I learned by working on that project was the danger of scientists’ attempts to resist the reality that science and politics are in this together.
[The] debate about climate change really is not a
scientific debate; that is to say, it is not an argument among scientists about the facts of climate change …
[It is, in fact,] a
political argument about the implications of climate change. …
The scientific recognition of … anthropogenic climate change has huge implications for … how we organize our economic system in the industrialized West.
So the problem begins with science because
- it was scientists who recognized the potential of greenhouse gases and deforestation to change Earth’s climate;
- it was scientists who first began to talk about it as a potential problem;
- it was scientists who recognized the political consequences of climate change; and
- it was even scientists who began to recognize the economic consequences as well.
(p 19)
But scientists were not prepared to grapple with all the economic, social, moral, ethical, and aesthetic implications, and so they left a kind of vacuum that has been filled by disinformation and obfuscation.
[And, however] much we might want science and politics to be separate, however much we might dream of a world in which they are separate, that is not the world that exists.
The most important thing that we can do moving forward is to find ways for scientists and people in politics, economics, and the arts to work together — to see this as a team project.
With different insights from these diverse domains, we can come together to solve this very profound problem.
(p 20)
We know something about why people are in denial about climate change.
We know where the contrarian movement comes from, and it is not because the science is uncertain;
the [scientific evidence is] overwhelming. …
We do need to do research, but it is not more research on the details of the climate system.
We might want to do that because we want to understand the climate system as scientists, but in terms of addressing climate change, it is questions about energy and about policy that we need to be asking.
We know that a tax can be an effective policy instrument, but we don’t know the conditions under which people accept taxation. …
We have been confused about what it is that we need to do …
Scientists could stand up and say yes, … we want to understand the natural world better, but in terms of what we need
now I believe there are more urgent things [to be done].
(p 23, emphasis added)
(
Bulletin, American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Spring 2014)
Robert Brulle: Sociologist, Drexel University
[The climate change countermovement] is fairly well funded.
What’s interesting is that in comparison to the environmental movement, it actually doesn’t have as much money.
The environmental movement actually has more funding, but it’s the nature of the spending that makes the difference.
When you look at what the environmental movement spends its money on, it actually tries to spend its money on developing solutions to climate change, such as developing a solar panel industry in China, making sure everybody in India has an appropriate solar oven to reduce CO2 emissions, things like that.
And they spend hardly anything on political or cultural processes.
The climate change countermovement spends all of its money there.
So you end up with this great difference between the two movements.
As one movement is actually out there trying to develop
technological solutions on the ground, the other is engaged in
political action to delay any kind of action. …
[As] the funding of climate countermovement organizations has become more politically controversial [we have seen] less and less attributable funding to these organizations and more anonymous giving through the Donors Trust or Donors Capital Foundation …
[So, for example,] if you want to protest what the Heartland [Institute] is doing and write their funders, you don’t know who they really are. …
[If] we’re going to have democracy and public accountability of our institutions, we need to at least identify who these funders are so that we can understand who is really funding the different [operatives] in the climate countermovement. …
{[We've seen a] shift from
attributable funding to
anonymous funding [which coincided] with the publicity that
Union of Concerned Scientists and
Greenpeace brought to the
Koch brothers’ funding and ExxonMobil funding …
Donors Capital and Donors Trust [insulate] the giver from any kind of political fallout from their giving …
Politically, it’s a very skillful strategy.}
[Exxon Mobil ceased overt] funding any climate countermovement organizations [in 2009.]
… The American Petroleum Institute at the same time started a grant program funding climate countermovement organizations.
Now, whether this is a coincidence or is not, I [wouldn't] want to speculate …
{[The] conservative movement in the United States [is an] extremely well-organized, focused, well-funded and ideologically consistent social movement. …
[The] general coordination and capacity is really quite extraordinary, and to be able to retain focus for this long of a period of time on clearly identified goals is very impressive.
There is no counterpart on the left …}
[The environmental movement is, in fact,] much more disparate and fragmented. …
[However,] not all of the activities of the climate countermovement take part through [libertarian free market] think tanks. …
[The] American Petroleum Institute [is spending] millions of dollars on advertising campaigns.
[On any given day] you’ll see two or three commercials extolling the virtues of increased energy production and using all of our energy resources to create American jobs.
[There is no actual mention of climate change.]
[Instead, they
reframe the debate in terms of things] that all Americans would generally support [—] more economic growth and more jobs.
[It’s] a well-developed, focus group-tested approach to convince people that we really don’t want to mess with the [current] energy mix …
Plutocracy is government by the rich, and so you have a whole process here where [private] interests with large amounts of money [are secretly directing] public policy in accordance with their particular interest [at the expense of the rest of the population]. …
[By comparison, the environmental movement operates within the] allowable parameters of political action in our society, and so they are sort of constrained …
(Inside the Climate Change “Countermovement", background interview for
Climate of Doubt,
PBS Frontline, 30 September 2012, emphasis added)
Historian of Science, Second People's Republic of China, 2373
In the prehistory of “civilization,” many societies rose and fell, but few left as clear and extensive an account of what happened to them and why as the twenty-first-century nation-states that referred to themselves as Western civilization [1540-2073].
Even today, two millennia after the collapse of the Roman and Mayan empires and one millennium after the end of the Byzantine and Inca empires, historians, archaeologists, and synthetic-failure paleoanalysts have been unable to agree on the primary causes of those societies’ loss of population, power, stability, and identity.
The case of Western civilization is different because the consequences of its actions were not only predictable, but predicted. …
While analysts differ on the details, virtually all agree that the people of Western civilization knew what was happening to them but were unable to stop it. …
Indeed, the most [striking] aspect of this story is just [how little action these people took given how much] they knew.
(p 40-41)
In 2001, the
IPCC had predicted that atmospheric CO2 would double by 2050.
In fact, that benchmark had been met by 2042.
Scientists had expected a mean global warming of 2 to 3 degrees Celsius; the actual figure was 3.9 degrees.
(p 46)
[In] the Northern Hemisphere summer of 2014, unprecedented heat waves scorched the planet, destroying food crops around the globe.
Panic ensued, with food riots in virtually every major city.
Mass migration of undernourished and dehydrated individuals, coupled with explosive increases in insect populations, led to widespread outbreaks of typhus, cholera, dengue fever, yellow fever, and [AIDS. …]
[Following the abortive attempt at geo-engineering in 2047] mean global temperature [rebounded] to nearly 5 degrees Celsius [above the pre-industrial average. …]
By 2050, Arctic summer ice was completely gone [and widespread and accelerating] thawing of Arctic permafrost [had ensued. …]
[The] estimated total carbon release from Arctic CH4 during the next decade may have reached over 1,000 gigatons, effectively doubling the total atmospheric carbon load.
This [resulted in] what is known as the Sagan effect [—] a strong positive feedback loop between warming and CH4 release.
Planetary temperature increased by an additional 6 degrees Celsius over the 5 degree rise that had already occurred.
(p 47)
The ultimate blow for Western civilization came in a development that … had long been discussed but [generally discounted] as a serious threat [—] at least in the twenty-first century.
Technically, what happened in West Antarctica was not, in fact, a collapse [but] more of a rapid disintegration. …
Over the [next 10 years] approximately 90 percent of the ice sheet broke apart, disintegrated, and melted, driving up sea level approximately three meters across most of the globe.
[And, subsequently, the breakup of the Greenland Ice Sheet added] another two meters to mean global sea level rise.
Analysts had predicted that a five-meter sea level rise would dislocate 10 percent of the global population [—] the reality was closer to 20 percent.
[It] is likely that 1.5 billion people were displaced around the globe …
[This dislocation] contributed to the Second Black Death, as a new strain of the bacterium Yersinia pestis emerged in Europe and spread to Asia and North America.
[In addition,] 60 to 70 percent of [non-human] species were driven to extinction. …
Survivors’ accounts make clear that many thought the end of the human race was near …
[Many believed that,] had the Sagan effect continued, warming would not have stopped at 11 degrees.
However, when a key species of lichen evolved to use atmospheric CO2 more efficiently, this adaptation, coupled with a fortuitous shift in Earth’s orbit, reversed the warming trend.
Survivors in northern inland regions of Europe, Asia, and North America, as well as inland and high altitude regions of South America, were able to begin to regroup and rebuild.
The human populations of Australia and Africa [— as every schoolchild knows —] were wiped out.
(p 48)
As the devastating effects of the Great Collapse began to appear, the nation-states with democratic governments — both parliamentary and republican — were at first unwilling and then unable to deal with the unfolding crisis.
As food shortages and disease outbreaks spread and sea level rose, these governments found themselves without the infrastructure and organizational ability to quarantine and relocate people. …
[And while] China had taken steps toward liberalization [it] still retained a strong, centralized government.
When sea level rise began to threaten coastal areas, China rapidly built new inland cities and villages and relocated more than 250 million people to higher, safer ground. …
The [Mass Migration that began in 2074] was not easy …
[For] many older citizens, as well as infants and young children [the transition proved to much …]
Nonetheless, survival rates exceeded 80 percent.
[The ultimate irony was that] China’s ability to weather disastrous climate change vindicated the necessity of centralized government, leading to the establishment of the Second People’s Republic of China and inspiring similar structures in other, [reconstituted] nations.
By blocking anticipatory action, neoliberals [not only exposed] the tragic flaws [of
lassiez faire capitalism:] they fostered expansion of the very system of government that they most abhorred.
Today [in the 300th year since the Great Collapse,] we remain engaged in a vigorous intellectual discussion [as to whether —] now that the climate system has finally stabilized [— political] decentralization and redemocratization may [safely] be considered.
(p 53)
(Naomi Oreskes and Erik M Conway, The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View from the Future,
Daedalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, 142:1, Winter 2013)
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