By Michael Faulkner – December 27,
2009
As so often in
critical times, the words and imagery of Shakespeare come to mind:
“We, at the height are ready to decline. There is a tide in
the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; omitted, all
the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full
sea are we now afloat; and we must take the current when it serves, or lose our
ventures.”
Brutus and his comrades, following the assassination of Caesar,
lost their ventures to Mark Anthony. Shakespeare never turned his attention to Nero and the
burning of Rome in CE 64. Had he done so he would probably have corrected the
apocryphal story of the emperor fiddling while the city burned, but he would
certainly have exposed his ineffectual – fiddling -efforts to deal with
the fire and his subsequent attempts to put the blame on others.
It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the Copenhagen
climate change summit, now drawing to a conclusion, has opted for the “Nero
option”. Whatever deal comes out of the summit, at best it is likely to be one
that will see temperatures rise by 3C throughout large areas of the south,
particularly in Africa. This will be the consequence of limiting global CO2
emissions to reduce global temperature rises to 2C. According to a leaked UN
document, even if this is achieved globally the outcome during this century
will be disastrous, with increases in flooding and droughts. The more likely
outcome of a 3C rise by mid-century will be catastrophic for Africa. Archbishop
Tutu is reported as saying “We are facing impending disaster on a monstrous
scale. A global goal of about 2C is to condemn Africa to incineration and no
modern development.” Informed opinion is in no doubt about what is at stake.
Matthew Stilwell, Managing Director of the Program on Governance and
Sustainable Development, is Legal Counsel to the UN Environment Program (UNEP).
He believes that at the Copenhagen summit the representatives of the rich
western countries are really concerned to ensure that they retain their right,
through carbon trading, to continue polluting the atmosphere at the expense of
the poorer countries. Pressure has been brought to bear on developing countries
to accept the 2C increase in return for a mere $10bn to deal with all climate
related issues for the next three years. The world carbon market is worth $1.2
trillion a year. President Obama, who will arrive in Copenhagen at the end of
the week, will be anxious to sign off a deal – any deal that can be
presented as a success. But even the 2C global goal may be too much for the US
Senate. Those small island states who are certain to be swallowed up by the
oceans are trying to cap rises at 1.5C. “They have to understand” insist The
Guardian editorial writers, “that 2C is the best they will get.” But, according
to Naomi Klein, writing in The Nation, it would be better to have no deal at
all than one that spells catastrophe. “It would”, she writes, “be a political
disaster for some heads of state- but it could be one last chance to avert the
real disaster for everyone else.” Stilwell agrees. “I’d rather wait six months
or a year and get it right because the science is growing, the political will
is growing, the understanding of civil society and affected communities is
growing, and they’ll be ready to hold their leaders to account to the right
kind of deal.”
To anyone capable of serious thought the issue is clear. The
future of the planet is at stake. Stilwell is right when he says that the
political will is growing. But there are very powerful forces engaged in a
deliberate campaign to prevent effective action on climate change. Before
considering them it is worth examining some of the other factors contributing
to widespread ignorance, apathy, skepticism and denial.
The situation is different from that posed by the threat of
nuclear war. During the Cold War years everyone was aware that a thermo-nuclear
war was possible even though most people were able to put the prospect out of
their minds for most of the time. The Cuban missile crisis of 1962 brought the
fearful prospect to the forefront for a few days. For most of the time there
was a rational belief that the balance of terror (Mutually Assured Destruction
– MAD) would prevent a nuclear war. Actually the possibility of a nuclear
conflict (India/Pakistan) or a nuclear accident, is greater now than it was
during the Cold War, but the fear of nuclear war has receded.
Despite mounting evidence of man-made, potentially
catastrophic climate change there is a stubborn reluctance to take the prospect
seriously. At a personal, subjective level, most people are resistant to
accepting that in order to tackle the problem very real changes will have to be
made in the way we conduct our lives and the way society is organized in the
western world. Acquisitive, consumerist society generates a mentality of
restless possessive individualism that can never be satisfied. Obsession with
ephemera, the novelty of change for its own sake, the ubiquity of obsolescence
and waste – all are integral features of our societies, so that it is
almost impossible to imagine that another, better world is possible. Those in
denial about the reality of climate change and its catastrophic consequences do
not want their illusions to be disturbed. If they are old and without family
they may comfort themselves with the selfish thought that they won’t be here to
see it. Many people are not prepared to abandon their gas-guzzling cars or cut
down on air travel. Younger people may resist confronting the reality for
themselves or their children by simply hoping it won’t happen. Then there are
various brands of religious fundamentalists who believe that whatever happens
is the will of God and that as He has willed it we have to accept it as an expression
of His love – or His disappointment with His creation.
The organized and well-funded “climate change skeptics” are
more insidious. They have a vested interest in either denying that climate
change and global warming is occurring at all, or that, if it is, it has
nothing to do with human activity. The handful of scientists who fall into this
category, often funded by the corporations whose interests they serve, try to
convince us that “scientists are divided” and that “the jury is still out” on
the issue. These people are behind the illegal hacking of the University of
East Anglia emails and the attempt to twist the evidence to suggest that there
was a conspiracy to suppress “the truth” as they see it. Amongst the deniers
are various conspiracy theorists who claim that the proponents of man-made
climate change are communists bent upon destroying the western world. Such
people are very much in evidence in the United States, but they also exist in
Britain. In fact one of them is representing the European Parliament in
Copenhagen. This is what he believes: “The anti-western intellectual cranks of
the left suffered a collective breakdown when communism collapsed. Climate
change is their new theology…used to impose an anti-human utopia as deadly as
anything conceived by Stalin or Mao.” He is Nick Griffin, recently elected in
Britain as a Euro MP. He is a Hitler-admirer and Holocaust denier, leader of
the fascist British National Party.
Until recently the left in Britain – that is, those
many small organizations and active trade unionists to the left of the Labor
Party – also appeared reluctant to face up to the implications of climate
change. This is now changing. It cannot be emphasized too strongly that no
political issue is more important than this. It is no longer possible to claim
to be working for a better world, for a fundamental change in the
socio-economic basis of society and an end to the gross inequalities,
exploitation and injustices that free-market capitalism has inflicted on the
world, unless we confront the reality of global warming. Too often people on
the left seemed to be stuck in the style and mode of thought of the past. The
challenges of the present, made shockingly real by the crisis of finance
capitalism, demand new forms of organization, new ways of mobilizing mass
support for a radical challenge to the whole social system. Everything that was
best about the old left needs to be carried forward into a new movement. It is
still not possible to see exactly what form such a movement will take, but the
widespread and growing popular anger that has arisen since the financial crisis
broke two years ago cannot be allowed to dissipate. New popular movements have
arisen in Latin America and they have many lessons to teach us in Europe.
Mass-based popular democratic movements can and must challenge the international
corporations that are responsible for the despoliation of the planet. The Nero
option, sitting back and watching the planet burn, is the sure road to
catastrophe. To this radical challenge aimed at taking power from the vested
interests that hold the world in thrall, there is no alternative. 