I was looking at this picture of people (mostly tourists, it appears) fleeing massive fires in Rhodes, feeling despair about the future of the world
when I was struck by an even more despairing thought.
Almost certainly, a lot of the people in the picture are climate denialists. And even more certainly, they will mostly remain so despite this experience.
Australia was one of the first countries to experience massive fires clearly attributable to global heating. In December 2019, fires burned up and down the east coast for weeks. Most of our major cities were blanketed in toxic smoke.
The conservative government of Scott Morrison, which had scored a surprise election win earlier in the year, made of botch of dealing with the fires (Morrison himself secretly jetted off to Hawaii for a holiday) and played down any role of climate, ably supported by the Murdoch press. Despite this, the denialist National Party retained its seats in most of the worst-affected parts of the country at the next election.
Labor, which had gone to the 2019 election with a reasonably good climate policy, dumped it in favor of marginal tweaks to the governments non-policy. Since winning office in 2022, the Labor government has approved massive new coal mines and gas fields.
And there’s nothing uniquely Australian about this. UK Labour is apparently considering winding back its climate policies on the basis of a mildly disappointing by-election result, and the denialist faction of the Conservative party is gaining strength.
Perhaps there is hope to be had somewhere, but I’m not feeling it right now.
{ 25 comments }
Michael Logan 07.23.23 at 7:36 pm
Climate change timescale extends well beyond the electoral cycle, sadly.
We’re all paying the price of political cowardice Short term jingo spouting fools haven’t the necessary courage, or communication and leadership skills.
Mr_Spoon 07.23.23 at 8:26 pm
“The best time to fight the climate catastrophe was twenty years ago. The second best time to fight it was fifty years ago.”
Alex SL 07.23.23 at 10:37 pm
Yes, I am increasingly getting accommodated to the idea that nothing significant will ever be done. While Florida, Denmark, and Bangladesh are being evacuated, there will still be people still crowing, “climate has always changed, and we will adapt”, and oil wells will be drilled in the increasingly ice-free arctic. Massive CO2 emissions stop only when global warming leads to food for five billion people being available while the world population is ten billion, triggering a downward spiral into the next dark age and population collapse.
What is peculiar is how the situation is being discussed. There are lots of optimists who write blog posts or social media comments pointing out how much more solar power is being deployed every year, implying that we are turning the corner. And then every year for one moment, when last year’s CO2 emissions are calculated and published, we see the graph showing that they are only ever going up except for tiny, short-lived dents whenever there is a global economic crisis (like 2008 and 2020). I understand the desire to think positively, but, come on, man…
J-D 07.23.23 at 11:52 pm
JRR Tolkien, The Lord Of The Rings
hix 07.24.23 at 1:08 am
In a world where you cannot convince a large share of the population to get vaccinated against corona, which has an immediate personal gain, convincing them to do anything about climate change is far off. Right now we cannot manage to ban conventional heating in new constructed buildings in Germany. The heat pumps should be cheaper anyway over the lifecycle of a new building. But no liberty! I got my right to heat people to death! The trick is not to try to appease the crazy 30%, which is pointless anyway. That is pretty hard for politicians, which sometimes seriously seem to think there are more AFD voters than racists. Maybe more equality will get the crazy down to say 20% and there is no excuse not to aim for more equality anyway. There is no excuse to appease reality deniers either.
Moz in Oz 07.24.23 at 5:48 am
Australia too seems to have more fascists than greens supporters, although at least in Australia we can vote explicitly for mining companies (the National Party and also whatever Clive Palmer is doing… why vote for the party of puppets when you have a mining billionaire running?)
What concerns me are the left wing parties who seem to have settled on saying nice things while competing with the darkest of brown parties to create more emissions. Labour in Australia are busy approving coal mines and gas extractions while talking very seriously about the need not to be seen as too extreme on climate action.
My theory is the the voluntary human extinction people realised they were never going to get anywhere being explicity so they went underground and started pushing lunatic economic and environmental policies in mainstream political parties instead. They;ve been very successful if so.
Chris Bertram 07.24.23 at 7:19 am
My thought at this point is that climate denialism, as such, is no longer such a big problem as nationalism and the nation-state system, which locks us into a big multi-entity prisoner’s dilemma. There will always be votes in telling voters that the costs of climate action are too high on them, that someone else should bear them, that targets should be extended or abandoned. That leads to widespread defection from international climate action and then contagion, because “why should we make pointless sacrifices given that other countries won’t.” And so it goes. In the UK, one by-election result has had the two major parties (the only ones with a chance to form a government) backsliding on climate because they fear the reaction of key groups of swing voters, even those those voters are a minority.
L.F. File 07.24.23 at 9:00 am
Upton Sinclair said: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”
Widespread public support is what is required and the public will never support the necessary measures needed to address climate change until they are satisfied that their personal security is not endangered. That is why programs like MMT’s #MedicareForAll and #JobGuarantee are crucial to the security of the planet.
engels 07.24.23 at 9:17 am
the left wing parties who seem to have settled on saying nice things while competing with the darkest of brown parties to create more emissions
Not something of which you can accuse Sir Kid Starver.
CP Norris 07.24.23 at 1:28 pm
Yeah, I mostly don’t stay this stuff out loud, but I guess this thread is a safe space for it: I have no hope except that I die before the food runs out or the place where I live becomes uninhabitable.
engels 07.24.23 at 1:36 pm
Capitalism for lemmings
superdestroyer 07.24.23 at 1:50 pm
The lesson that should have been learned from Covid-19 is that almost no politician can think past the next ninety days. It is the reason that long term problems such as education, budget deficits, infrastructure are usually undealt with.
As far as global climate change goes, politicians and activist need to learn to discuss the issue with out mentioning any other social safety net issue, need to demonstrate more personal leadership, and need to start thinking about adaption because nothing else is doing to work inside of modern politics.
Alex SL 07.24.23 at 10:21 pm
Chris Bertram,
But isn’t it denialism to pretend that one isn’t destroying the future of one’s own nation and people when one is very obviously is doing so? Seems like “decision makers are in denial about the consequences of their actions” is a pretty fitting description of the situation, with their assumptions probably being some combination of it won’t be as bad as predicted and we can adapt and we will simply come up with something like carbon capture when it gets really bad.
The third is what I hear from a close family member. I have yet to understand how that works to any meaningful degree given, well, what we know today about thermodynamics. We being science; I doubt my family member personally grasps that reversing an exothermic reaction costs at least as much energy as that original reaction of, e.g., burning oil, released. I have heard talks suggesting a variety of ideas that I can absolutely see drawing down as much as 0.1% of all the carbon we have released if humanity decides collectively to fund these ideas with a huge portion of all its global resources at the cost of other undertakings such as, say, everybody’s living standards, so that is totally going to happen and totally going to make a big difference (end sarcasm).
Point is, my family member is a denialist, only a bit further than others along the inevitable chain of it isn’t happening, okay so it is happening but it is natural, okay so it is caused by humans but warm weather is actually nice, okay so this is potentially bad but we can adapt or carbon capture, okay there is nothing we can now it is too late why didn’t you warn me earlier this is your fault not mine.
Has anybody noticed, by the way, that this last step is increasingly being wheeled out? I have this year seen several articles to the effect that climate scientists haven’t made it clear enough to governments how bad global warming would get. You have to laugh, otherwise you cry.
Moz in Oz 07.25.23 at 4:44 am
I’m not really seeing the “why didn’t you tell me”, what I’m seeing is much more of the “we break the law all the time, breaking the laws of thermodynamics will be no big deal”. Even most economists and other nominally “conservative” types seem to have no problem running up a huge energy debt and assuming someone else will pay it off very quickly in the future via as-yet unknown mechanisms.
I dunno, I feel very old when I look back at the 1990’s and think about how the IPCC report was just another example of an environmental problem that we needed to address. But in cliche “growth is good” fashion we’ve grown a whole lot of problems until now they overlap and interact to give us huge compounding
benefitsdisasters that were only vaguely suspected before. Who would have thought that heating everything up would increase droughts and reduce rainfall, making famines much worse than any one factor can account for?Sadly my rant on “conservatoves vs conservationists” from ~2005 has aged off the internet. Said rant was an expansion of something I wrote ~1975… at primary school. Plus la change or something.
KT2 07.25.23 at 6:31 am
JQ: “Perhaps there is hope to be had somewhere…”
JQ: “Almost certainly, a lot of the people in the picture are climate denialists.”
89% Hope… “The remainder (11%) believe ‘until we are sure that global warming is really a problem, we should not take any steps that would have economic costs’.” ^1.
JQ: “… played down any role of climate, ably supported by the Murdoch press.”
No Hope: “Majorities in 18 of these countries view the spread of false information online…” ^2.
Climate claims, via an image, with some information -say a graph and graphic are best for conveying climate info to deniers. Not talk or text or ‘direct’ science. Perhaps the resident graphic person may try a graphic post ala John Berger Ways of Seeing? (Hint Henry F)
And our amygdala returns to baseline after emergency or threat passes. Me – 2 weeks for the pandemic. Panic for 2 weeks even with death and no vaccine staring you down daily. Humans!
^1.
From “LOWY INSTITUTE POLL 2023”
.. “A majority of Australians (56%) continue to say ‘global warming is a serious and pressing problem’ about which ‘we should begin taking steps now, even if this involves significant costs’, slightly down by four points from 2022.
“Three in ten (32%) say ‘the problem of global warming should be addressed, but its effects will be gradual, so we can deal with the problem gradually by taking steps that are low in cost’.
“The remainder (11%) believe ‘until we are sure that global warming is really a problem, we should not take any steps that would have economic costs’.
“There is a significant gap between how younger and older Australians respond to this question. Those aged under 30 are far more likely to see global warming as a serious and pressing problem requiring immediate action (72%), compared to a bare majority (53%) of those aged 30 and older who say the same.
“In response to a separate question this year, six in ten Australians (59%) see climate change as a critical threat to Australia’s vital interests in the next ten years.”
https://poll.lowyinstitute.org/charts/climate-change/
*
^2.
“Climate Change Remains Top Global Threat Across 19-Country Survey
“People see UN favorably and believe ‘common values’ are more important for bringing nations together than ‘common problems’
AUGUST 31, 2022
…
“These are among the main findings of a Pew Research Center survey, conducted from Feb. 14 to June 3, 2022, among 24,525 adults in 19 nations.
“The survey finds that people continue to see climate change as one of the greatest threats to their country, and this is especially true in Europe, where more say climate change is a major threat to their country than at any time in the past decade in most countries. The results come as wildfires and extreme heat across Europe cause massive disruption to life.
“Despite the dire concerns about climate change in Europe, concerns are relatively muted in the U.S., as they have been for years. Views on climate change as a threat are linked to political divisiveness in the U.S., something also seen in the other countries surveyed, with those on the ideological left showing more concern about climate change than those on the right.
“While people in these 19 countries often view climate change as the top threat, concern for the other threats tested is not diminished. Majorities in 18 of these countries view the spread of false information online and cyberattacks from other countries as major threats, even as few rank either as the top threat.
…
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2022/08/31/climate-change-remains-top-global-threat-across-19-country-survey/
Alex SL 07.25.23 at 9:39 am
Moz in Oz,
Not sure where your “even” comes from. Ignoring negative externalities is the intellectual basis of contemporary economics. I would go as far as to speculate that if long-term consequences at the level of the entire society would be quantified and taken into account in decision making, there would probably be no mining industry, for better or for worse. (But I am not an economist, grain of salt, etc.)
Moz in Oz 07.25.23 at 10:33 am
Alex SL, I’m being gentle to John Quiggin and a couple of other economists I am familiar with. A lot of this stuff isn’t new to economists, most are just really good at dissociating the “I get money for this” bucket from the “we’re all fucked” bucket. The ones who aren’t generally end up on a sheep farm in NZ or something equally rational and cost-benefit positive and also enjoyable and stuff like that.
Or else like David Brin or Nick Gruen, finding a hobby horse and thrashing it until the wheels fall off.
Mister J 07.25.23 at 12:55 pm
A young woman stepped to the podium. She was demurely dressed, with an ankle-length skirt, clean white blouse and a vest, simple Earth-tones, green and brown. She spoke in a sad but serious tone.
“I am the Voice of the Earth”, she said, “This human you see here before you is speaking, not on my behalf, but as a reminder of the relationship between you and I. Humans speak with great eloquence about Gods and Prophets and Saviors, but it is my flesh and my blood that sustains you. I have been called ‘Mother Earth’, but I am an indifferent parent, whether you all live or die is of no concern to me.
I support no politician or political party, I back no human policies. You cannot exploit me, for I give freely of all I am. You cannot poison me, for poison is also of me. I am merely a rock surrounded by gas, orbiting a Sun. A speck of dust in this solar system, which is a speck of dust in this galaxy, which itself is a speck of dust in this Universe. And you are only specks of dust living on my surface. I was here long before you or any life on me has existed, I will be here when all life on me is long dead.
My message to you is simple. Humanity has a choice to make. You can choose to understand our relationship and thrive, or you can fail to understand it and and die.”
-From “The Lord Of Quincy”, an unfinished and unpublished novel
steven t johnson 07.25.23 at 5:01 pm
It seems to me a return to the prehistoric notion of the productive forces would clarify thinking. The soil, the air, the plants and animals, the people are all productive forces. And you should judge economic arrangements by how well overall they promote the growth of the productive forces, or at the least, preserves those already existing. If we think of productive forces, the environment is wealth. But it’s public wealth. In a system where everything economic is decided by private owners, that’s not even a principle. Of course, having public authorities plan what to do with public wealth is both immoral and impossible,* so as Cicero, the first liberal said, losers should shut up and die quietly and quit disturbing us good folks.
See the divine revelation by Cosma Shalizi.
Lee A. Arnold 07.25.23 at 5:10 pm
New paper, today: “Warning of a forthcoming collapse of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation”
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-39810-w
“In this work, we show that a transition of the AMOC is most likely to occur around 2025-2095 (95% confidence interval).”
According to Bard:
“If the AMOC were to shut down, it would have a number of devastating consequences. These include:
Cooling in Europe: The AMOC brings warm water to Europe, which helps to moderate the climate. If the AMOC were to shut down, Europe would experience a significant cooling, which could lead to crop failures, energy shortages, and mass migration.
Sea level rise on the East Coast of North America: The AMOC helps to slow the rate of sea level rise on the East Coast of North America. If the AMOC were to shut down, sea level rise would accelerate, which could inundate coastal communities and infrastructure.
Changes in precipitation patterns: The AMOC helps to distribute precipitation around the globe. If the AMOC were to shut down, precipitation patterns would change, which could lead to droughts, floods, and other extreme weather events.
Collapse of the Amazon rainforest: The Amazon rainforest relies on the AMOC to bring warm water to the region. If the AMOC were to shut down, the Amazon rainforest would likely collapse, which would have a major impact on global climate.
Disruption of the Asian monsoons: The Asian monsoons are essential for agriculture and water supply in Asia. If the AMOC were to shut down, the Asian monsoons would likely be disrupted, which could lead to crop failures and water shortages.
A shutdown of the AMOC is a major climate tipping point, and it is something that we should be very concerned about. The impacts of an AMOC shutdown would be devastating, and they would affect people all over the world. We need to take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate the effects of climate change, in order to avoid the worst-case scenario of an AMOC shutdown.”
craig fritch 07.25.23 at 11:57 pm
I have long thot that nothing will be done. The rich think enough $$ will get them the bunkers they KNOW they’ll need. So they pay scribblers to delude the less fortunate.
Jonathan Hallam 07.26.23 at 11:17 am
Hi,
With respect to the UK by-election – Uxbridge – the seat was retained by the Tories on a slim majority, largely due to opposition to the expansion of the ultra-low-emission-zone from inner London to largely suburban outer London. The ULEZ (broadly) is intended to price petrol cars older than 2006 and diesel cars older than 2016, if not off the road, at least out of London.
It’s not hard to understand that, having been marched up the hill of preference-for-diesel-cars-due-to-lower-carbon-emissions by the government in the name of Queen and Climate Change, the public are annoyed to have to turn around and march back down again – given the paucity of used electric cars older than 2016, most likely back to the post-2006 petrol car they would’ve likely bought in the first place!
It’s particularly troubling as it looks like this might endanger the 2030 ban on new internal combustion cars, and (especially) the 2035 ban on fossil-gas boilers.
Joe B. 07.28.23 at 6:15 am
@20 That Bard writeup of the AMOC is really inconsistent with the science. Shutting down the AMOC would have global effects, but Europe will still get warmth from the North Atlantic Gyre and from the atmospheric jet stream. There have been studies on this. For example, this recent summary: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/faqs/IPCC_AR6_WGI_FAQ_Chapter_09.pdf
The part about the AMOC shutdown no longer bringing warm water to the Amazon region was just strange. If anything, the reduction in export of heat from the Tropics would super-heat the Tropical climate (and that would be very very bad for a few billion people, but this is NOT what Bard says).
So PLEASE do not trust Bard to give you accurate information about science. For the latest physical science on Climate Change I strongly suggest the IPCC 6th Assessment (AR6), Working Group 1 (WG I) Technical Summary. Google it. (Everyone looks at the Summary for Policymakers, but the Technical Summary is much better and answers a lot more questions without reading the thousands of pages of the reports).
Just earlier today I read the Ditlevsen paper you reference, and I don’t believe it adds anything to the science. But if you are of the school that says “let’s reduce the complexity of the entire climate system to a single variable”, then go for it and panic (well, panic sooner). As a field we have studied those simplified models for decades and learned a lot, but they are not the only answer. I still believe the IPCC’s assessment of the physically-based, complex climate models that the slowdown and potential shutdown is a somewhat more gradual process and, unlike the Ditlevsens, I can tolerate epistemic uncertainty in science and not resort to an “appeal to the god of bifurcations” to think I have a better answer. (Yes, I think their epistemology is f*-ed up).
Lee A. Arnold 07.28.23 at 3:16 pm
@23 — Thanks, I should know better than to trust an LLM. Bard also hallucinated a false citation in response to a different query (about early institutional economics).
Your IPCC AR6 FAQ link illustrates that a weaker AMOC will weaken the Gulf Stream portion of the Atlantic Gyre, and transport less heat to Europe.
Michael Mann (of “hockey stick” fame) on Twitter linked approvingly to the following brief Axios report on the Ditlevsens’ study, which quotes him saying that he questions some of the study’s methods, but he had already concluded, from other new work since the AR6, that the AMOC collapse might happen in decades from now, not centuries:
https://www.axios.com/2023/07/25/gulf-stream-collapse-atlantic-ocean-circulation
I have long believed, and often expressed here, that an actual worldwide acceleration of undeniably extreme events, such as the heat waves we now see, might be necessary before the general public will refuse to be confused by the mountains of technical information that is twisted into climate denialism by the petro lobby.
What we need next is a standard-bearer who clearly distinguishes between the well-modeled, long-term, gradual complexities of global warming and the occurrence of extreme events which is difficult to model and is happening in advance of most expectations – without forgetting to mention that current events are exacerbated by an El Niño that is likely to be even worse the next time.
And not forgetting to be optimistic, because we are technically able to solve this problem.
I nominate Dr. Mann, who has a new book coming out next month which can help to push the debate forward.
Tim Worstall 07.29.23 at 8:31 am
Snark deleted. Nothing more like this, please Tim
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