As weather
records topple like ten pins and climate instability escalates, we seem to sink
ever deeper into apathy, denial and paralysis. The gloom grows with every new
announcement.
In the US, the number of people doubting the existence
of anthropogenic climate change has been steadily increasing. However, a poll
just published in the NY Times
indicates that the recent erratic weather has persuaded more Americans that
there is some credence to the concerns of climate scientists. The poll was
still not enough to persuade President Obama to mention “climate change” in his
Earth Day message for fear of a right wing reaction. Politics not only interferes
with science, it also intensifies the risks of social confrontation.
In Canada, public opinion on climate change is more
closely correlated with the economy than with weather developments. When the
level of economic activity drops, so does our concern for the environment. We do
not experience the same extreme weather events that the Americans do, except in
the Arctic; sadly that area has slipped off our radar screens. Not even
warnings about the possible disappearance of two of our iconic symbols – polar
bears and shinny rinks – can jolt us out of passivity.
Now David Suzuki, another of our symbols – though far
from disappearing – has acknowledged that the environmental movement has hit a
dead end. Partly, he believes that it is because environmentalists have failed
to sell the right message. The real question is whether any message would have
been heard.
As a sentient species we are remarkably deaf to
scientific evidence. Perhaps it is because science is so dispassionately
rational that it does not possess the same power to move us as, in the past, the
call to arms has inspired us to resist those foes who have threatened our
freedom. Our need to mitigate the destructive effects of climate change has to
be expressed with the same inspirational energy which gave our predecessors the
determination and courage to defend themselves against a more visible and
tangible threat.
Confronting the climate crisis is an undertaking that
may not have any historical precedents but it certainly has prescient
parallels. Unlike previous conflicts, we are facing an invisible enemy and,
moreover, an enemy of our own creation. To complicate the battle scene further,
we are not only fighting ourselves, both in our attitudes and in our actions,
but we are also fighting among ourselves. In Pogo’s immortal words: We have met
the enemy and he is us.
Our fight must be aimed primarily at anthropogenic
greenhouse gases (ghgs) – a foe as insidious as it is invisible. The main
culprits are carbon dioxide and methane, both colourless and odourless gases
that circulate in the upper atmosphere where they trap the heat that is
inexorably warming the planet.
Global climate and weather aberrations clearly
indicate that a war is already underway. Nature has struck first, provoked by
constant abuse into launching an offensive. From the outset we are on the
defensive, divided and unprepared with no clear tactical or strategic
objectives.
Unlike World War II, when, except for a lone
dissenter, the House of Commons was unanimous in its declaration of war on Nazi
Germany, we are hopelessly divided. The battle lines are blurred because there
is no common enemy, nor can we even agree on the enemy. We are shell shocked because
we are caught in both the crossfire and friendly fire and we cannot distinguish
one from the other. We are confused and demoralized.
The external threats, in the form of weird weather and
changing climate, are not yet urgent enough to create a sense of national
emergency. In 1939 the fear of German aggression in Europe was palpable and the
surprise attack on Pearl Harbour in late 1941 transformed the US into a
belligerent overnight. Future generations may well apply President Roosevelt’s
famous phrase, “a day of infamy,” to our timid response to combat the serious
threats to the environment upon which we are so dependent for life itself.
The economies of the allied powers were immediately converted
to war-time production; within days tanks replaced cars on the assembly lines. Ironically,
we cannot summon that will today and force manufacturers to scale down the size
of the peacetime descendants of those military vehicles, such as jeeps,
hummers, trucks, land cruisers and suvs to compact hybrids in order to wage war
on ghgs.
Why have we failed to designate the automobile as “a
weapon of mass destruction?” We declared war on tobacco but we refuse to launch
a war against one of the major contributors to ghgs. Is it because of the power
of consumers, voters, unions, executives, shareholders, the advertising
industry or politicians? Perhaps we have to investigate more ethereal enemies
in the form of ideologies that hold us captive, such as free market capitalism
or unfettered economic growth, in an effort to isolate and understand the
enemies of nature.
World War II entered a period known as the “phony war”
from September, 1939 to April, 1940 when there was little military activity in
Western Europe. We are well into our phony war – a “war” characterized by phony
ghg targets, phony policies such as cap and trade, and phony political
rhetoric. Even the platitudes ring phony. As the planet heats up and the
weather gyrates, there is a surreal phoniness to our efforts to combat climate
change. “Fighting for the future” had meaning in Europe in 1939. Today it is an
eerily empty phrase.
The Kyoto Protocol, signed in December, 1997 is part
of a tradition of multilateral diplomatic conferences aimed at maintaining
international peace and security. Kyoto is different because it targets
environmental peace and security by laying out a strategy to mitigate the
growth of global ghgs. Kyoto can also be viewed as a declaration of war on
behalf of the environment. But in an endless series of rancorous UN sponsored
conferences over the past 14 years, the signatories have failed to agree to any
binding international commitments on ghg targets.
The parties made progress at the Copenhagen Conference
in 2009 by drawing a line in the sand and agreeing that anything in excess of a
2 degree C increase in global temperatures in this century would catapult the
planet into runaway climate chaos. Scientists now estimate that we are on our
way to reaching this critical threshold by 2050. Unmoved by the warnings, countries,
both developed and developing, are stampeding across that crucial line in a
frenetic race to the bottom as they pursue the dream, or rather the nightmare,
of perpetual economic growth.
The scourge of nationalism, precursor of so many wars,
still haunts us today. As resources become increasingly scarce, it will be economic
nationalism this time pitting country against country in ruinous conflicts. The
failure of international cooperation will initiate a free-for-all as
conventions and protocols break down. Next on the feeding list will be the
melting Arctic as its oil, minerals and fish become more easily accessible. The
major players are already lining up at the starting line in the north as the
last frontier opens up for exploitation.
“Truth” is invariably the first casualty in war.
Despite warnings, such as the thawing Arctic and the increased frequency of weather
blitzes and the virtually unanimous scientific consensus that global warming heralds
major climate changes, the denial camp is undeterred. Their propaganda machine,
bankrolled by corporate money, has been in combat mode for years. Their storm
troopers are actively promoting climate heresies in a compliant media that is always
anxious for controversy. By creating doubt in the public mind, the climate
contrarians are thwarting the formation of a common front in the battle against
global warming.
In the words uttered by Abraham Lincoln shortly before
the Civil War, are we in danger of becoming “a house divided against itself”?
At the very time we should be uniting against an overwhelming threat to our
survival, we risk unleashing a fratricidal civil war. Society could fragment in multiple ways. We
could split into climate believers and non-believers, reminiscent of earlier
religious wars. Alternatively, because high income earners create a
disproportionate percentage of ghgs, society could fracture along socio-economic
lines igniting a class war.
Earlier this year, some politicians suggested that
environmental groups with “a radical ideological agenda,” acting as proxies for
foreign organizations, are undermining our national economic interests by
“hijacking” regulatory processes. Our environment minister, who is charged with
protecting our natural endowment, accused foreign environmental groups of
“laundering” money through Canadian charities, while a Conservative senator
suggested that the environmental movement was engaging in “influence peddling.”
According to the news media, the government is even
considering changing the definition of domestic terrorism to include
environmentalism. Instead of declaring and promoting a united war on ghgs, the
government has declared war on free speech, intimidating and vilifying its
own citizens in the process. Implying that those committed to the cause of global
survival are a foreign financed fifth column sounds like George Orwell in
modern guise. It also smacks of the repugnant McCarthyism of the Cold War era.
Witch hunts do little to forge national unity.
In the midst of these accusations, Postmedia reported
that the government had been quietly working with the oil and gas lobby to gild
its climate change policies to avoid punitive European Union fuel sanctions on
tarsands bitumen. Government documents allude to environmental organizations as
“adversaries” while fossil fuel companies are regarded as “allies.” Does
government collusion with the oil industry portend the emergence of a new triangular
version of the “military-industrial complex” in President Eisenhower’s
memorable phrase?
Decisive leadership, so crucial in prosecuting a
successful military campaign, is lacking in the climate confrontation. We are
leaderless at a time of crisis. The government is consorting with the enemy.
The brass have gone AWOL and deserted the troops. Our armchair generals are
busy concocting technofixes, such as carbon sequestration and storage rather than
focusing on the real enemy – consumption and lifestyle. Other “weapons,” such
as buying offsets for our “carbon sins” are more closely linked to the medieval
religious practice of selling papal indulgences than modern warfare.
The possibility of a common front in the climate
campaign has just suffered another major setback. The government has launched a
preemptive strike on the environment by using the budget bill as a Trojan Horse
to conceal numerous measures attacking nature. We are faced with a crisis of
conscience: do we fight for the future or do we capitulate to political bullying?
The war for planetary and national security is not
only a just and a moral war, it is also a revolutionary war because we have to
change basic societal values regarding consumption, self-interest and waste.
The war can never be won unless there is a fundamental transformation of our
lifestyles which, at present, far exceed the sustainable capacity of the
planet. Above all, it is a war of principle because we are fighting for the
rights of unborn generations who have played no part in the desecration of
nature. There can be no conscientious objectors in this war, no passive
resistance, no surrender to political threats and corporate propaganda.
Individually, we are responsible for taking action; we
can no longer rely on the state. We have to answer the call to arms by waging a
personal war, in the peaceful tradition of Gandhi and Martin Luther King,
against pollution, fossil fuels and environmental degradation. It will
undeniably require sacrifices in lifestyle but our commitment and dedication to
the cause will surely be reinforced by the troubling questions our
grandchildren will soon be asking: Which
side were you on Grandma and Granddad? Did you fight for my future?
