OEL Newsletter Article (Number 3)

Issue 71 of OEL Newsletter featured an article 'Can Politicians Solve Climate Change? Here is one individual's reaction (in Issue 72, Spring 2008). You may wish to read and carefully consider it, you may share or disagree with the writer’s opinion on this important ecological matter.

Politicians Cannot Solve Climate Change (Even if They Tried)

Dr. Stephen Wozniak

In newsletter 71 it was suggested that politicians might be able to solve climate change. Politicians can surely solve any problem so long as they do not run up against an immutable law of science. However, first they have to recognise there is a problem. Second, the general population has to allow them to formulate and then to implement effective policies. Climate science may also play a part. James Lovelock has suggested that many Earth subsystems are already in 'positive feedback' and moving the Earth towards a hotter stable state, similar to that at the start of the Eocene, fifty‑five million years ago. If he is right, then nothing that politicians can do may now make much difference.

Pretence and Denial

Climate change has become a game of political pretence. 'Green-growth' has been championed by David Cameron. It promises continued economic prosperity, business opportunities (green tourism!) and saving the world. A few politicians may already realise that if they presented realistic policy options based on a proper understanding of the issues they would be laughed out of office. Modest energy savings can be achieved using technology, carbon capture and carbon trading. Deep cuts will require lifestyle changes.

The populace feign support for environmental ideals but tolerate implementation just so long as their own indulgences are not much compromised. A few pop‑stars and politicians buy costly status‑symbol (feel-good) environmental gimmicks such as solar panels or small wind turbines. These are far removed from cost effectiveness in most situations and a poor use of capital and resources.

A recent survey of young people showed that virtually none were prepared voluntarily to make any sacrifice in their material comforts to help the environment. The UK market for ringtones for mobile phones is £240 million annually. Most of this is spent by young people. The UK market for illegal drugs is estimated at £5000 million annually ‑ rather more than the budgets of environmental charities.

No Meaningful Changes

In 1998, I gave the Offwell lecture. I took as my twin themes how little had really changed since the days of 'Silent Spring' and how much money there was sloshing around the world that could be used to help save it. It was an auspicious choice for a datum point ‑ Rachel Carson was recently voted the World's top Eco‑hero (Newsletter 71 page 7). Fast‑forward ten years and much has surely changed: we now have a vast popular awareness of 'climate change'. But has use of fossil fuel decreased? Has world population growth slowed? Has the popular appetite for air travel and faster land transport diminished? Has there been any decrease in the rate of species extinction? All the indicators remain pointing firmly in the wrong direction.

If no‑one really wants to destroy Life on Earth as we know it, we need to ask why all major government policies are geared to doing broadly this. I will ignore the minor sums of money devoted to ‘environmental' projects. Whilst 'environmentalists' have no doubt made a substantial impact on raising awareness they have arguably made little impact on the total sum of world environmental degradation. Forests burn, airports expand, people breed.

No doubt, things are not as bad now as they might have been without the 'Greens'. Extinction of some of the more photogenic species is being postponed. Environmentalists have made valiant efforts and many believe they are making a difference. However, the sums of money at their disposal remain trivial. This merely reflects political and business priorities ‑as I made clear in my lecture.

Earth at the Edge

'Climate change' as it is currently understood is probably due to a natural warming period (Rachel Carson referred to this in her books) coinciding with a sudden man‑made rise in carbon dioxide levels. This has occurred during an interglacial ‑ the worst possible time to heat the Earth artificially!

The sun is now hotter than when the Earth was young. To maintain conditions fit for life on the early Earth required no complex 'air‑conditioning' systems. Today, they are essential and yet may soon fail. Life in both the oceans and in the tropical forests as we know them has evolved to play a large role in Earth cooling. Both systems may be 'switched off by man‑made global warming of only a few degrees. Keeping the polar regions white and reflecting may also be critical. Mankind may warm the Earth by (say) three degrees. Nature may rapidly add another three or maybe five. Such a process would be unstoppable.

Life has survived many Ice Ages. Ecosystems have been renewed ‑ but over tens or hundreds of thousands of years. But many systems have now become stressed and degraded before the onset of a climate shock. There is probably nothing that can now be done by politicians or anyone else to fortify these systems better to withstand even modest climate change. And humankind is utterly reliant upon them.

Perpetual Growth ‑ Escapism for Politicians

There are twin drivers for what has happened to the Earth ‑ perennial greed and rampant population growth. These continue to be manifest in the various major economic policies that are applauded by politicians. Lovelock has referred to humans as a plague. He is right in that we have outgrown our natural place in the order of things. The demands of a huge population have in effect 'mortgaged the future'. Current economic systems are inherently unable to survive substantial lessening of 'economic growth'. The ecological economist Herman Daly has for years warned that continued growth may in fact make us poorer: he includes the costs of degrading the Earth. His reward has been to remain a voice in the wilderness.

The problem with growth economics (as with all pyramid selling) is that you need ever more players and wealth to prevent the system collapsing. Pensions are a good example ‑ few schemes across the world are 'fully funded'. This jargon means that sufficient money has been paid in by the people now drawing a pension to fund their own pensions until they die. Most schemes rely heavily on contributions from younger workers to pay for those now in old age. With an expanding population and a buoyant economy, the system works.

Pension time‑bombs are ticking. Politicians in Italy, Russia and elsewhere are exhorting women to have more babies ‑ and offering rewards for fecundity. Are these the politicians to whom we must look to address climate change?

Politicians cannot do anything that would risk economic collapse; they cannot conceive of lowering world population (even gradually) for that would expose still further the fragility of world economics. They cannot do much (even if they had the will) to limit growth in the use of fossil fuel energy within the next 20 or 30 years because China and India will continue their headlong dash to growth regardless of any consequences. But even if they did try, it is already probably too late.

Normality or Isolated Conflux?

The collective memory in contemporary western society is short. Life has been very comfortable for the most privileged 10 or 20% of the world's population for the last two generations ‑ a mere 50 years. We think it is normal to have social welfare, security, peace, plentiful and varied food, health care, leisure time, warm houses, cars, air travel, electronic gadgets, long lives and bountiful pensions.

Our current 'quality of life' is probably merely an aberration ‑ the result of a chance conflux of abundant and easily exploited resources, a benign and stable world climate and (crucially) the rapid development of science. This has enabled exploitation of the riches of the Earth without (so far) much retribution from Nature. Yet if we burn even a fraction of remaining fossil fuel reserves the Earth's climate may change markedly. Ecosystems and human societies would collapse. Billions would die.

So what difference would it make if politicians did now genuinely strive to reduce energy use, to limit population growth and to bring an end to the era of conspicuous over‑consumption and wanton waste? Short of revolution or total systems collapse, these are all processes that have time‑constants measured in decades ‑ so changes could take two generations to have significant effect.

Can Anyone Make a Difference Now?

To help answer this question, let us assume that if we continue 'business as usual' the world as we know it may end in 100 years. There is no need to speculate on which of several globally significant and impending calamities would impact most severely, or on which might occur first.

Consider reductions in energy use that realistically could be achieved in the West, severe programs to reduce human breeding, all the hardship of recession and failed pensions schemes, and mass unemployment as people no longer spent their days manufacturing useless throwaway items. The totality of all this painful sacrifice might delay the projected end of the world by a month or maybe even by a year. 1 am here speculating that because of the positive feedback mechanisms that may now be operating, a 1% reduction in our 'impact' on the Earth may have far less than a 1% restorative effect.

Even if we stopped using fossil fuel energy completely (an absurd suggestion since billions of people would die within weeks) the Earth might continue to warm. Once released into the air, C02 has a residence time of decades. Worse still, if we stopped flying, the sudden decrease in high altitude sulphur emissions might cause a noticeable increase in warming within a year. The cooling effect of high altitude sulphur is short‑lived and may be masking the full warming effect of carbon emissions.

So when the reality of our impotence dawns, would any politician dare order genuinely painful and real sacrifices for no certain benefit? Would the millions of 'super‑rich' give up their yachts, mansions, supercars and hugely destructive lifestyles? Would politicians sacrifice their pensions and live modestly? Would ordinary consumers even stop eating meat and coveting luxury? Would most of them even bother to wear winter clothes indoors in wintertime?

Here is a school project. Walk into your nearest council offices, luxury department store or car showroom on a cold February day. Measure the temperature. Count the men in macho short sleeves and the women in skimpy skirts! Lifestyle changes to help Life on Earth survive have yet to begin.

Politicians profess control of the world, yet they have none. They merely muddle through, taking undue credit for the myriad and remarkable achievements of science within the era of chance conflux, an era that may soon draw to a close.

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