Talk of the catastrophic effects of climate change no longer points listeners to the distant future. Some predictions regarding the failing Gulf Stream, which will eventually throw our UK weather is heading into disaster, place the tipping point around now, and catastrophic damage around 20 years away. By KAY GREEN.
The crisis is upon us
When we planned the Hastings People’s Party discussion event, we thought a useful focus would be to check out the stories of denialists, and the ‘conspiracy theory theories’, and think about how we could break through to clarity. In preparation, I went to skepticalscience.com to read about the most common myths and what scientists had to say about them.
In an initial go-around-the-room, most people said they weren’t hearing much from denialists, except from far-right agitators who are so good at providing simple, comforting answers to everything, and don’t feel any pressure to provide either evidence or logic.
Recent surveys suggest over 80% of the population is worried about climate change, and in our discussion, someone reminded us that the current trend for veganism didn’t start as a health-kick, but grew out of public awareness of the destructive nature of the meat and dairy industry.
People are taking it seriously. Why else would everyone be willing to mess about with all those coloured bins? Similarly, people took COVID seriously. Most stayed home when they were instructed to (more or less), and many, many people stepped up to help with things like delivering to the sick and the elderly, or keeping foodbanks working.
But we’re not doing enough about the climate crisis.
Habits and values
We wondered whether it’s just too hard for most people to adjust their habits and values that much – but then we thought about the way people responded to the threat of invasion during the world wars. We concluded that maybe what was missing was a clear directive from the government about urgency, and about what we could and should be doing.
But what about what the government should be doing?
The one thing the government appears to be serious about investing in is ‘carbon capture’, a so-called solution that, so far, has not shown much hope of success. It’s quite extraordinary when you consider the government has just put out a report on climate change from a national security point of view, and it’s clear they seriously are expecting trouble.
The above lends extra irony to a story a Scottish friend told me the other day – apparently, Glasgow City Council have been cutting down mature trees – the planet’s very best carbon-capture devices – to make clear sight-lines for AI facial-recognition cameras. Surveillance, data and control – there are some things our government takes seriously.
Can it be their main response to the coming crisis is to prepare for the day when we feel its effects enough to rise up in anger?
In our discussions, we all felt it was fairly obvious that most governments act almost entirely for the short-term benefit of corporations rather than attempting to fulfil the needs of the population. To me, the most jaw-dropping evidence of this is politicians’ continued willingness to use, and to trade in, excessively destructive machines of war – such as those we’ve been seeing in action in Gaza – instead of trying to prevent wars. The USA, for example, does not include military emissions or other consequences of war in measurements of its carbon footprint.
People are worried – but are they worried enough?
A few years back, we often heard people say, ‘Oh well, it’ll be nice if it gets a bit warmer’.
Another idea that seems to have worn off now, but one of our participants last night thought the main gap in our awareness is that most people don’t understand about feedback loops, about how we’re not looking at anything like those one-off weather events that throw chaos at us from time to time. Rather, when climate systems hit their tipping points, we’ll see wave after wave of disasters, each causing the next, exponentially larger disaster.
Are people just turning away, thinking there’s no hope, that they don’t even want to talk about it, as there’s nothing they can do? There’s plenty of evidence that governments and corporations like and are good at encouraging feelings of powerlessness. We thought that as something a decent government could easily change. If politicians said to us, ‘This is the threat, this is what might happen. This is what we’re doing about it, and this is how you can help.’ People would act. With enthusiasm. They did in the world wars, they did during COVID – so task one: get ourselves a decent government!
We could also start thinking about proposals we as communities could make to ourselves – and we could be challenging the war industry, corporations and councils, and setting up anti-consumerism, sharing and making projects of our own. People like things to be fair, and they like cooperative projects where everyone gains.
Our discussion group ran out of time at that point and decamped to the pub to mull over
some ideas. Watch this space….