[img]7|left|Frédérik Sisa||no_popup[/img]As the New Year begins and it becomes clear the Climate Change conference in Copenhagen didn’t even reduce emissions from political blowhards, I wanted to wrap up my discussion of climate change denial by tackling the confusion of political and scientific considerations. Writing for the Telegraph U.K., columnist James Delingpole sums up very neatly the political fears of climate change deniers – fears I’ve consistently come across among pundits and doubting friends alike. In reference to Australian MPs resigning in protest over a carbon tax, Delingpole writes (http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/):

 “For the rapidly increasing number of us who believe that AGW is little more than a scheme by bullying eco-fascists to deprive us of our liberty, by big government to spread its controlling tentacles into every aspect our lives, and scheming industrialists such as Al Gore to enrich themselves through carbon trading, this principled act by Australia’s Carbon Five is fantastic news.”

Here we get to the crux of the matter, and I’ll briefly deal with each objection in turn.

It’s a scam for scheming industrialists to enrich themselves

Poor Al Gore. He could say the sun is shining, and his opponents would rush out of the woodwork to declare sunshine a liberal conspiracy to restrict people’s freedom to sleep and an attempt to defraud the light bulb manufacturing industry, thereby crippling the economy. From the point of view of simple reasoning, it doesn’t matter whether Al Gore is a scheming industrialist or not; it has nothing to do with the truth of climate change. Hypocrisy is all about an inconsistency between behaviour and professed principles. Do we suddenly start proclaiming the righteousness of adultery when politicians or religious figures have affairs? Of course not; we condemn the hypocrisy. But far worse is that we already have scheming industrialists spending lots of money to preserve the huge amounts of money they already have: the oil industry. Remember them? The people who posted record profits while gas pump prices reached for the sky? (http://money.cnn.com/2008/02/01/news/companies/exxon_earnings/) Here we have an established, tremendously powerful global industry with billions of dollars in revenue at play and a willingness to fund climate change denial groups (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/)…it seems like there are plenty of scheming industrialists to go around. And none of them have anything to do with whether the science is correct or not.  

It’s a conspiracy  

The so-called ClimateGate scandal, otherwise called SwiftHack, is undoubtedly one of the first things climate change deniers will point to as evidence of a world-wide conspiracy…except that it isn’t a smoking gun. An analysis by the Associated Press (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/) concluded that “E-mails stolen from climate scientists show they stonewalled skeptics and discussed hiding data— but the messages don't support claims that the science of global warming was faked…” Critical responses to the leaked email scandal have also been summarized by the Huffington Post (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/02/), and climate scientists like the folks over at Real Climate (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/the-cru-hack/) have also responded. Yet the motive to blow this up out of proportion is ultimately to reinforce the pre-existing hostile view deniers have of climate change advocates, as exemplified by Mr. Delingpole. The fears expressed, however, are neither reasonable nor sensible. If deniers really want to prove a conspiracy – one that has swallowed scientists across the globe, religious leaders like the Pope and the Dalai Lama, the world’s governments (even the U.S. and China!) – then they should demonstrate financial ties, correspondence, secret meetings, agreements between key players, the elements of a sustained propaganda campaign, and all the elements needed to make a worldwide conspiracy work…yet the hacked emails are all that have been produced. Yet, there is ExxonMobil is funding groups to spread misinformation about climate change science – because confusing the public delays action that could cut into their record profits. That’s a conspiracy you can bank on.

Big government is taking over our lives

The charge of “eco-fascism” rests on a flawed view of freedom – the freedom to consume without limit, to act without limit. However, for freedom to make sense as a concept, it cannot be absolute. We already recognize limits. Freedom doesn’t mean freedom to kill, steal or rape at will. So why is behaving responsibly in regards to the environment such a big threat? By polluting, by destroying the environment, we foster disease, sickness and environmental destruction that directly affects the health and life of others. If our freedom to act, then, is naturally limited by other people’s freedom to life, liberty and health, we are logically compelled to accept that we must also refrain from damaging our environment. Riddle me this, then: How bad is it that government asks us to do something we should be doing on our own, regardless of whether the law demands it? Personally, I’m all in favour of non-government solutions for preserving a healthy environment. Alternatives, however, are hard to come by, given today’s political and cultural realities. The philosophical point is that if everyone is (or should be) free to act as he or she pleases, then one person’s freedom must end where another’s begins. We thus have a moral obligation, related to restrictions against murder and rape, to preserve the environment in a state that doesn’t result in sickness or death for other people. Sickness and death, after all, are pretty big impediments to freedom.

Cause and Effect

Frankly, I wish climate change science was wrong. I’d love to know that sea levels won’t rise enough to wipe out island nations and cause much damage to others. I’d love to know that animal species that are so beautiful and wonderful won’t become extinct. I’d love to know that the world’s people won’t suffer from the consequences of severely altered weather patterns. But so far, the science and advocacy is solid, and climate change deniers can only offer their denial, point-blank. There’s no evidence of a conspiracy. The charges of environmental profiteering are irrelevant. Fears of eco-fascisms are philosophically suspect. It’s not even clear that most climate change deniers understand how science, as a human enterprise, works, let alone the actual science underlying climate change. All this points to the fact that Al Gore was right – it is the inconvenience of climate change that prompts rejection of climate change. Don’t like the effect? Deny the cause.

In the end, however, we will be made to account for our actions on this planet by nature and the physical laws that govern it.

Frédérik invites you to discuss this week’s column at his blog, www.inkandashes.net