The conservative political parties in Australia are in total chaos trying to come up with a response to the Rudd government’s (not very impressive, but better than nothing) proposals for an Emissions Trading Scheme. The fundamental problem is that the majority of them, along with virtually all of the conservative commentariat share the delusional view that the whole body of climate science is a hoax, got up by a coalition of grant-grubbing scientists and environmentalists bent on world domination. But within this majority, a substantial group are sufficiently in touch with reality to realise that 80 per cent of the Australian population disagrees with them, and will hand them a thrashing at the next election.
So, they have a problem. They’ve used their near-majority in the Senate to block the ETS legislation, but now its coming up again. On a second rejection the government can dissolve both houses of Parliament and call an election which would almost certainly produce a crushing defeat. But, for a number of technical reasons, the government doesn’t want to go this way and might just be willing to do a deal. The party leader, Malcolm Turnbull (the most able they have by far, but not known for sound judgement) is desperate to do such a deal and has put his leadership on the line. But the hardline delusionists are, so far, unwilling to go along. All in all, there’s plenty of pain to go around, and the government has been happy to watch the Opposition wallow, arguably at the price of a less effective response to climate change.
There’s a bit of a puzzle to me here. In the US and UK, as in Australia, the conservative commentariat is solidly delusionist. In the US, Republican politicians, activists and voters are similarly deluded, so there is no coherence problem. But in the UK, it seems as if Conservative politicians ought to be facing a difficult choice between going with the majority of their supporters (sane, on this issue at least) and the commentariat (delusional). But as far as I can see, the Conservatives are at least as good as Labor on this issue, yet they don’t seem to cop any flak from the Telegraph, Spectator, Times etc, all of which push a solidly delusionist line. I’d be interested in observations from those closer to the action.
* On top, from an equally valid perspective, but I’ll let the northern hemisphere majority have their comforting conventions on this one.
{ 42 comments }
JulesLt 10.06.09 at 8:16 am
I wonder if one explanation for the UK Conservative position relates to Margaret Thatcher – who had a background in Chemistry, so probably had a reasonable grasp of both the science, and the scientific process. (See the link for her ’89 UN speech). Even if that was always compromised by action.
It is interesting to see the commentariat aligning themselves with such a stupid, unscientific view – you can find an idiot willing to claim the Earth is flat, but that doesn’t really mean the shape of the Earth is a disputed issue, just that out of 6 billion people, there are a few idiots. The interesting question is why?
Do they actually believe in what they’re saying, or is it just a feeling that they have to occupy a contradictory ‘right’-wing point of view? Or does it relate to the way that the media always prefer the story of ‘lone scientific voice challenges the consensus’ rather than the way most science actually progresses?
dsquared 10.06.09 at 8:19 am
On top, from an equally valid perspective
Shape of the earth: Opinions Differ!
Chris Bertram 10.06.09 at 8:29 am
I did a post years ago in which I suggested that if the conservative commentariat really believes what they say, it should be possible to sell them a range of investments (Alpine ski resorts etc).
[On the UK Tories, I presume that the presence of people like, the otherwise repulsive, Zac Goldsmith, keeps Cameron in line.]
Phil 10.06.09 at 8:47 am
Yes to both the points in Jules’s last paragraph, & I think there’s a broader point about the role of the commentariat in the UK – which is that there’s a real asymmetry between Left and Right. On the Left, throughout the 80s and 90s, the core function of the commentariat was to pull Labour to the right – and before that it was to attack Labour from the right, in support of the SDP. On the Right in the same period, the Conservatives were led by Thatcher (who led from the right) and Major (who didn’t, but stated openly that he didn’t care what the Right said).
Labour let the commentariat get under their guard a long time ago – one way of looking at Blair’s New Labour agenda would be as an attempt to leapfrog the commentariat and lead them from the Right, Ã la Thatcher. (The difference being that Thatcher was pretty much at the right-most limit of mainstream politics; when you start from the Left, as per Daniel’s recent post, there’s always further Right to go.) The current generation of Tories have grown up under leaders who either told right-wing commentators what to say or told them to get lost. So when Frank Johnson or Hitchens minor or Mad Mel start getting all brave and controversial and challenging the Liberal Received Wisdom, they know they don’t have to pay any attention.
Phil 10.06.09 at 8:48 am
/throughout the *late* 80s and 90s/
Chris Dornan 10.06.09 at 10:07 am
I get the impression that in this country, on the right, climate-science scepticism is more of an eccentric activity. We can expect The Spectator to take this editorial line, but The Times and Telegraph? I would be interested to know as I don’t read them.
The Tories are far too disciplined and preoccupied with preparing for power to get distracted by this issue.
What interests me is what is going on? OK we have done the shouting-at-the-selfish-thicko-ignoramuses-unwilling-to-confront-the-truth routine. Now what? In true Anglophone style say it all louder.
I mean I don’t doubt that there is an element of wishful denial , but there has to be more to it. When I see a young person engaging in harmful behaviour I don’t set about humiliating and trashing their self esteem. Its often helpful to examine one’s own contribution to the dynamic.
There is a history of a kind of arrogance in the way that science gets pushed into ethical issues, and the strident claims that have been made in its name haven’t always been wise. Now that there really is a need for people to pay attention, a significant minority have decided they have had enough. And don’t they make great fodder for the likes of Nelson, Belamy and Plimer.
alex 10.06.09 at 10:20 am
“Arrogance” is a very tricky concept to introduce to scientific debate. After all, when you have explained to someone, in terms that an 8-yr-old could understand, why they are simply, factually, wrong, and yet they persist in arguing that it is you who are the liar, liar, with your pants definitely, without question, on fire… Well, is it “arrogant” to say that they don’t know what they’re talking about, and aren’t willing to engage the issues seriously? It may be anthropologically interesting to consider why they take these attitudes, but taking them seriously would be capitulation to stupidity and blind short-term self-interest. Especially as the deniers aren’t troubled teenagers, but grown men and women, often of considerable influence, who deserve no leeway for confusion.
Hidari 10.06.09 at 10:32 am
‘The Tories are far too disciplined and preoccupied with preparing for power to get distracted by this issue.’
Yes I don’t think there is any great mystery here. In the US and Australia the Right have just been kicked out of office, and won’t be returning to office anytime soon, so they can afford to sulk, whine, and throw the toys out of the pram. It keeps the ‘base’ happy and doesn’t cost them anything as there won’t be an election any time soon anyway. In the UK the Tories are actually preparing for power and don’t have time to waste on absurd denials of reality.
Joe S. 10.06.09 at 11:40 am
“On top, from an equally valid perspective.”
Nay, from a better perspective. The heavy land masses sink to the bottom; the water goes to the top. Although what that says about Australia, I’m not sure.
Salient 10.06.09 at 12:01 pm
On top, from an equally valid perspective
This perspective has the advantage, such as it is, of rendering the earth’s rotation and the solar system’s rotation as clockwise rotation, but those who live and die by the right-hand rule would never be able to get used to it.
Ginger Yellow 10.06.09 at 12:35 pm
I wonder if one explanation for the UK Conservative position relates to Margaret Thatcher – who had a background in Chemistry, so probably had a reasonable grasp of both the science, and the scientific process. (See the link for her ‘89 UN speech). Even if that was always compromised by action.
To be unduly fair to Thatcher, her switchover to natural gas (obviously motivated by other reasons) is the single biggest thing that the UK has done to avert climate change.
mart 10.06.09 at 12:40 pm
I am not sure you should characterise the Times as a “solidly delusionist” publication – I think they’ve been okay on the issue, certainly compared to the level of crazy in the others you mention. Also in my experience, plenty of their supporters are also delusionist (just go read some of the comments on the Telegraph blogs), but to themTeh Great Climate Conspiracy is less of a travesty than 1) Teh EUSSR and 2)Teh ZaNuLab.
magistra 10.06.09 at 1:04 pm
I think one of the reasons that the delusionists don’t spend much time attacking David Cameron et al is their presumption that Cameron’s views are all greenwash, and that when it comes to the crunch the Tories in power will abandon their green principles. Given that this is the principle already adopted by Labour (talk green, vote for expansions of airports etc), there are good reasons to be sceptical of whether Cameron actually means what he says, let alone sticks to it.
ajay 10.06.09 at 1:36 pm
I get the impression that in this country, on the right, climate-science scepticism is more of an eccentric activity. We can expect The Spectator to take this editorial line, but The Times and Telegraph? I would be interested to know as I don’t read them.
The Sunday Telegraph is fairly delusional. I read it last weekend (god knows why) and it had a long opinion piece along the lines of “the Met Office couldn’t get the weather forecast right, why should we believe them about climate change?”
Ceri B. 10.06.09 at 1:42 pm
Hidari: In the US and Australia the Right have just been kicked out of office, and won’t be returning to office anytime soon, so they can afford to sulk, whine, and throw the toys out of the pram. But the US right wing, at least, behaved like that while in power, too. Now you could make an argument that they simply don’t believe in governing except to, #1, loot for themselves and their buddies and, #2, punish everyone they dislike, and I’d be glad to do that myself, but it’s not a matter of holding office versus not.
dave heasman 10.06.09 at 2:28 pm
Nope –
To be unduly fair to Thatcher, her switchover to natural gas (obviously motivated by other reasons) is the single biggest thing that the UK has done to avert climate change.
I moved out of my flat in Willesden in 1975 and we’d already been converted to North Sea Gas. Maybe the power stations hadn’t, but that wasn’t really a Thatcher decision.
I do recall being shocked by her accepting the reality of climate change so early, but she quickly realised that
there was no political will to act on it
she’d be dead before it got too uncomfortable
she didn’t give a monkey’s about posterity, had written off her children (just like Reagan had)
Stuart 10.06.09 at 2:57 pm
Ceri B. is obviously not looking for votes, it is one thing to try and get into power for selfish reasons, but something else to openly say if you got in power you would be glad to loot the country.
Ginger Yellow 10.06.09 at 4:38 pm
I meant the power. Sure, there were factors beyond her control, like the eventual depletion of North Sea oil, but she very consciously promoted and accelerated the switch from coal to gas for electricity. Like I say, her motives weren’t environmental (at least, not more than a small part), but her actions in this area had a big effect.
hamvaut 10.06.09 at 4:45 pm
I’m not sure your picture of the UK commentariat is empirically right.
OK, they’re not all Monbiots (our best national columnist), but how widespread really is the delusionism? I think it is fading and perhaps Cameron’s tactical seizure upon Green imagery to soften his Toryism is responsible.
Even Jeremy Clarkson seems to be coming round, if not on the evidence of his writing on that of the more popular Top Gear.
David Wright 10.06.09 at 7:02 pm
Regardless of what they think of climate science, conservatives should be jumping at the chance to implement a carbon tax or emissions trading scheme, provided the entire revenue goes toward reducing more progressive taxes and provided there are no subsidies to prop up the consumption of the poor, or the profits of established industry players.
Hell, every time some eco-freak does one of these ostensible externality calculations claiming some outrageous “true cost” for some everyday convenience, conservatives should immeditely offer to implement that use tax in exchange for an equal reduction in progressives taxes. Pretty soon things that even poorer members of rich societies take for granted, like using a disposable bag or taking a warm shower, will be luxuries affordable only by the rich, and the tax system will be essentially flat or even regressive.
Salient 10.06.09 at 7:09 pm
Ceri B. is obviously not looking for votes, it is one thing to try and get into power for selfish reasons, but something else to openly say if you got in power you would be glad to loot the country.
Uh, I think Ceri was offering to make the argument, not loot the country. :-)
Martin Wisse 10.06.09 at 7:32 pm
With the American right, you have to take into account their religious beliefs, in that a fair few of their followers and leaders do seem to genuinely believe in the Rapture and all that and have taken away from it that they need not worry about the environment cause it’s all part of god’s plan.
Also, money buys you out of a lot of problems climate change brings to other people — Katrina was an investment opportunity.
garymar 10.06.09 at 11:08 pm
“The heavy land masses sink to the bottom; the water goes to the top.”
Huh? Antarctica is a continent; the Arctic is just a cap of frozen water (though it won’t stay frozen much longer). Probably Antarctica just got an early start on sinking to the bottom: it’s an “early adopter”. The rest will follow eventually.
In any case, I’m quite sure the entire universe revolves around me.
Omega Centauri 10.07.09 at 5:10 am
In the US I think most of the delusionists are true believers. For one faction, libertarianism is all important. It is inconcievable that a loving god could have created both libertarians, and put them on a planet needing strong case of regulation to avoid a serious tragedy of the commons issue. Then there is the fundamentalist faction. To them god created (and controls) the world, and any presumption that man could interfere with god’s planet is pure arrogance. Finally we have the myth of the end of days, for these folks, all the worthy people will soon be raptured away. Climate chaos is just one of the ways he will punish the guilty left behinds.
Far easier to believe any of these non threatening narratives, including the conspiracy theories about commie scientists, then to overturn cherised ideology.
Substance McGravitas 10.07.09 at 5:20 am
Is this faction of a size that’s worth talking about at all?
peter 10.07.09 at 7:25 am
European Conservatism, unlike the Fundamentalists now dominant in the Republican Party in the USA, is mostly pragmatists — anything that makes money can’t be all bad. Europe now has a working emissions trading scheme (albeit a scheme which was poorly designed and which has been gamed), and no Conservatives were harmed in the making of it. In fact, some people who are natural Conservatives — traders in the City, oil company managers — have been busy making money from it.
In addition, driven perhaps by popular sentiment, there has been a competition between large fmcg and retailing companies in Europe to convince their consumer audience that they are truly green. When the likes of Tesco and Nestle are loudly boasting of their green credentials, it is hard for the party of business to disagree. (Perhaps not impossible, as Australia shows.)
blah 10.07.09 at 8:45 am
‘if the conservative commentariat really believes what they say, it should be possible to sell them a range of investments’ (C. Bertram)
Or they could bet on climate change, giving odds that reflect their apparent views on how likely major climate change is. A blogger who has tried this with self-described climate sceptics wrote that strangely enough he hasn’t found any sceptics willing to offer him better than even odds on a thousand-euro bet.
Hidari 10.07.09 at 11:11 am
Don’t discount cultural differences too. The US (and Australia) are colonial land Empires. The national mythology is all built about taming the wilderness and imposing (superior) European values, not only on the backward natives, but also on backward Nature. This has led the American and Australian Right to have a certain hostility towards the environment as such: taming the wilderness has always been a key part of the imperial/right wing mythology.
In Europe it’s all a bit different. Certainly, in the UK modern Conservatism stems from Burke and other ‘reactionary’ writers who stressed organicism, and evinced a certain distrust of science and technology. So the idea that ‘we’ have screwed up nature and that ‘we’ need to reign back on growth and ‘progress’ is much easier to swallow than in the US/Australia, where ‘progress’ has always been a key part of the imperial project.
etbnc 10.07.09 at 2:48 pm
Re: Hidari @27: Yes, yes, yes. Useful insight into those value sets, I’d say.
As a US resident/participant/observer, that description seems spot-on to me. I don’t have personal experience with Australian attitudes, but the parallel makes sense to me.
Thanks for contributing that perspective.
(now back to lurking …)
Omega Centauri 10.07.09 at 7:13 pm
McGravitas @26. I think libertarianism -as in the worshipping of the free market, and dislike of any collectivly administered regulation of activity, is a potent force in the US. Only a few may be hard core enough to vote Libertarian, rather than Republican, but the influence of the philosophy seems pretty large to me. This partially derives from having fought and throw off a supposedly oppressive foreign government (England). It is true that for many of these fellow travelers, libertarianism doesn’t apply to such areas as recreational drugs, or to desire for a non-interventionist foreign policy, but otherwise the influence is substantial.
Steve LaBonne 10.07.09 at 7:41 pm
Omega- I think you’ve defined what’s often called glibertarianism, a form of unprincipled ressentiment which indeed is far more influential than anything remotely resembling a consistent libertarianism.
NM 10.08.09 at 4:09 am
On UK Tories and climate policy:
I don’t think it has anything to do with Thatcher. The Tory/Cameron Leadership’s (!) position on climate change/environment was driven largely or exclusively, as far as I can tell, by Cameron’s determination to “detoxify” (his term!) the Tory brand. Environmentalism, like hugging hoodies, was useful and fortunately, unlike hugging hoodies, it seems to have stuck. The ‘Thatch hypothesis’ would seem to be devalidated by the fact that the most right-wing parts of the Tory party (whcih are the most Thatch-worshipping) are least persuaded that climate change is actually real/a threat/… Also, to my knowledge, in opposition the Tories were never much bothered about Greenery pre-Cameron.
Above someone asked about Telegraph and Times: To my knowledge, the Murdoch press has actually been *comparatively* sane about climate change (at least compared to the Spectator’s ravings). James Murdoch is said to be a quite committed environmentalist. The Telegraph, from the little I see of it, is Far, Far Out There. They publish articles by people with degrees in Classics telling climate scientists how to do their job…
magistra 10.08.09 at 6:04 am
I think Hidari’s point about ‘taming the wilderness’ is very good. And to add to this: how much of the US and Australia are actually bearable/practical to live in without very intensive use of energy? If you have to cut down drastically on car use, air travel and air-conditioning, are many scattered communities based in what are naturally near desert climates feasible for modern western-style living?
I’d be interested to hear for the same reason, how strong denialism is in Canada, which has a similarly hostile environment to deal with, but a different political tradition.
james 10.08.09 at 3:52 pm
Or it could be that the conservatives in the US remember all the other true and factual information coming out of the universities and how it turned out to be crap (Quality time for child rearing as an example). Having been burned (pun intended), one to many times, the conservative just doesn’t have the same amount of faith in academia’s words of wisdom. They looki around for people who might disagree the current meme and land with the geologists. The geologist say the climate was warmer in the past prior to the industrial revolution. The conservatives then say ah, another lie. Meanwhile the geologist are protesting that their statements are being misunderstood and the conservatives have already moved on.
Alternatively they could view Climate change as the second, third, or fithteen most critical issue. If the economy is tanked to deal with Climate Change where will the funds come from to deal with these other more important issues? From my personal view, plague or runaway super bacteria is a more likely cause of mass death in near term.
Steve LaBonne 10.08.09 at 3:55 pm
james’s illiterate rant is a museum-quality specimen of the conservative “intellect”. Thanks for playing.
james 10.08.09 at 4:23 pm
Steve LaBonne: I try a tongue and cheek answer and you immediately jump to being insulting. Let me spell it out for you. It’s the boy who cried wolf.
In the US, academic views are used as a justification for a wide range of items. From the purely scientific to the strange and completely cultural. No matter what the topic is, the academic justification applied at the political level is that the position is science and therefore fact. It doesn’t seem to matter if the academic is in the hard sciences of physics/chemistry/etc or in the cultural / social sciences. Dozens of cultural battles later, the conservative is remembering multiple instances where the completely factual science turns out to be complete crap. Not just from the conservative view point but also from the academic’s view point. As a non-offensive example look at the change in the “science†behind dieting. So the wolfs here and a significant segment of the population doesn’t believe you anymore because you cried science one to many times.
To translate into left speak. Nuclear power may be a scientifically viable solution to dealing with global warming, but I don’t trust it because…
Steve LaBonne 10.08.09 at 4:31 pm
It was more like a head in rectum response.
Nor should it. What should matter is what the facts are. Many wingnut denials of social / behavioral science findings , on things such as, for example, needle exchange or abstinence “education”, are every bit as idiotically (and damagingly) wrong as their denials of ideologically inconvenient bits of natural science.
mart 10.08.09 at 5:25 pm
@James
As someone who is sadly only capable of using liberal logic, I would like the following terms you used explained to me:
1. “completely factual science”
2. “academic justification”
3. “you cried science”
many thanks in advance.
Map Maker 10.09.09 at 4:35 am
“What should matter is what the facts are. Many wingnut denials of social / behavioral science findings , on things such as, for example, needle exchange or abstinence “educationâ€, are every bit as idiotically (and damagingly) wrong as their denials of ideologically inconvenient bits of natural science.”
Hey now – it goes both directions. I don’t see liberals pushing prayer or placebos as part of healthcare reform, regardless of the science. Or for that matter – what is the sustainable number of non-endangered whales that Iceland, Japan, etc. can safely hunt? Most of the liberals I seem to see already know the answer is zero before reading the science…
John Quiggin 10.09.09 at 4:52 am
@MapMaker, I’m more interested in remote retroactive intercessory prayer.
On whaling, I think most people recognise that the issue, as regards non-endangered species (only minke is in this class IIRC and they are listed as “threatened”), is between people who want to protect whales because they like them, or want to help the whalewatching industry, and people who want to kill whales either to be eaten as a delicacy item or to keep the uneconomic whaling industry going. I’m happy to line up in the first class.
ajay 10.09.09 at 9:07 am
people who want to kill whales either to be eaten as a delicacy item
Which I never quite understood. Whale tastes awful (I’m told). It used to be available off-ration, and people still didn’t eat it unless they were desperate. Still, I suppose, “local delicacy” = “we have yet to persuade anyone outside our extended families to actually eat this stuff”.
james 10.10.09 at 9:15 pm
Hi Mart,
Please keep in mind, the original post is a comment on how political parties treat science.
1. “completely factual science” what a polition calls some peice of science that he wants to use to further an agenda.
2 “academic justification” justification for a coarse of action that derives largely from some time of output from a University or think tank.
3 “you cried science” its a word play on ‘the boy who cried wolf’.
Keeping with the Environmental theme. The evironmental organizations just know that the number of necessary fuel breaks is near zero and no forest ever needs to get cut regardless of the reports. This is why there are the automatic lawsuits filed when ever the issue comes up.
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