Climategate, Denial and Copenhagen

As we at CFME have said before at this blogspot, there are many reasons why a community might choose to explore less carbon-intensive arrangements for daily life. Regular readers might already know that I, for one, like to touch base, from time to time, with the “big issue” reasons that may motivate such activity. So allow me to muse over the recent “climategate scandal” and the current talks (circus?) underway in Copenhagen.

So-called Climategate seems to have unfolded in staged dramatic fashion: for the “denial” camp to have uncovered an injurious scandal, discrediting climate scientists on the eve of the most significant international talks on climate change since Kyoto itself in 1997 smack of a last-ditch effort on their part. With undeniable momentum building in favour of the anthropogenic climate change argument (and the moral imperative to respond to it), it’s as though the global warming deniers had to pull out all stops – including illegally obtaining information – in order to win some favour before any treaty gets signed.

From where I stand, it seems to have been a successful move, regardless of whether their science of denial has legs to stand on or not. Good science that supports the climate change thesis – of which I believe there is a great deal – can only be strengthened by honest doubt and scrutiny, and should proceed unscathed. However, public opinion does not operate by the same principles, and may well have cemented a little more around the pillar of distrust that average Joe has for “liberal” science – or what-have-you.

What’s more, to non-scientific ears, the deniers talk a good talk – much of it based on reasonable doubt. Most people are not expert enough to discern the subtleties that dot the climate change landscape. An impressionable mind can be led to connect whatever dots an “expert” may choose. Couple that with the underlying wishes and desires of most people (that everything is just fine as is) and denial becomes quite compelling. In other words, and I think this has always been true, the climate scientists who have the unenviable task of warning the world about global warming are working against an inertia of gigantic proportions.

Denial also helps to assuage our guilt. After all, we have literally burned through more energy in one generation (baby boomers) than in all of recorded history. Anthropogenic climate change is a function of industrialisation, and its particularly consumptive form known to some as the “throw-away” consumer society. With the greatest known source of fungible energy at our disposal we have chosen to squander most of it in as little time as possible - the geological equivalent of a hiccup.

Look to the Sea
Elsewhere, I have heard the denial argument take the form of “humility” claiming it is arrogant for humans to believe we mere mortals are capable of affecting Mother Nature. Nice try. I will concede that the more apocalyptic predictions about climate change do appeal to a certain arrogance – as do the fantasies about miraculously conjuring some technological fix at the last minute. But one look to the oceans can surely dismantle this posturing as mere pretence. The oceans, after all and (in addition to being disrupted by climate change) are thoroughly affected by human activity, and are at great risk of system failure because of it. Already, thanks to industrial-scale over-fishing, most populations of large species of fish have been reduced by 90%.(1) And as Canadians, we should all know the story of the poor ol’ North Atlantic cod.(2)

Add to that the problem of plastic: unfathomably vast portions of the biggest bodies of water have become completely riddled with plastic debris: quasi-islands of trash that have been growing since plastic became available as a disposable product decades ago(3)(4). Furthermore, the oceans' ecosystems have been so disrupted, that there are also vast dead-zones that once teemed with life. From a human point of view (though it may not be scientific of me to say), the oceans are physically on par with the atmosphere – and they are most certainly interconnected when it come to climate.(5) It is by no means arrogant to be dismayed by the state of the oceans, nor is it arrogant to believe that we might be having a similar effect on the atmosphere.

Climate change happens; it’s a matter of geological record. Arguably, we may be fighting a trend that is in fact bigger than mere anthropogenic climate change, and as a consequence, there may be very little we can actually do to prevent the dreaded two degree-increase in global mean temperatures at this stage in the game. But it remains glaringly obvious that continuing to add carelessly into the mix unprecedented amounts of CO2 is beyond foolish (can you say four degrees? Six?).

Proceeding without a carbon-reduced contingency plan for the long term is doubly foolish, since the stage is now set for ever changing dynamics on the energy supply front, which is the subject of my next post, where I will try to contextualise the oft misunderstood concept of “peak oil”.

As a final note I have to mention that by some strange coincidence, the talks in Copenhagen will close (and presumably deliver something) on my 40th birthday. Now I’m having enough of a hard time coming to grips with the personal milestone, but I’m trying not to place too much importance on “that number”. Similarly, I’m trying not to place too much importance on the would-be treaty or agreement that will get twisted by politics in Copenhagen, and the years to follow. I’d like to think that the lip-service and other news that comes out of the political process, is secondary to the moral imperative that conveyed there. It is this – arguably an end unto itself – that motivates at least some of us to change our living arrangements, no matter what our governments think they must do.