George Monbiot has published a story in the Guardian with a strong dose of reality:
He goes on to say that maybe it’s time to give up “magical thinking”.
I hope that by laying out the problem I can encourage us to address it more logically, to abandon magical thinking and to recognise the contradictions we confront.
I’ll say. While I disagree with a lot of what Monbiot says, he does know enough not to lie to himself when things really aren’t going in his favor. He also hits on why the green/warmist movement is becoming so unpopular:
It is a campaign not for abundance but for austerity. It is a campaign not for more freedom but for less. Strangest of all, it is a campaign not just against other people, but against ourselves.
Monbiot does have some realist sense about him, so I find it encouraging that he’s writing about the pickle the greens and warmists find themselves in. I recall during Climategate when he was the first to come out with a statement saying that the issue needs to be addressed square on:
Confronted with crisis, most of the environmentalists I know have gone into denial. The emails hacked from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, they say, are a storm in a tea cup, no big deal, exaggerated out of all recognition. It is true that climate change deniers have made wild claims which the material can’t possibly support (the end of global warming, the death of climate science). But it is also true that the emails are very damaging.
The response of the greens and most of the scientists I know is profoundly ironic, as we spend so much of our time confronting other people’s denial. Pretending that this isn’t a real crisis isn’t going to make it go away. Nor is an attempt to justify the emails with technicalities. We’ll be able to get past this only by grasping reality, apologising where appropriate and demonstrating that it cannot happen again.
And, as he wrote there, many have continued with the “storm in a tea cup, no big deal, exaggerated out of all recognition” meme. Except the public knows better, and warmists are losing, and losing big. His article this week though is well worth a read, because he’s pretty well come to the conclusion that warmists and greens have painted themselves into a corner with demanding energy policy changes, while providing for no alternatives of substance, and the public is having none of it.
All of us in the environment movement, in other words – whether we propose accommodation, radical downsizing or collapse – are lost. None of us yet has a convincing account of how humanity can get out of this mess.
Dogged reality bites – coming soon to an election near you. Canada this week, Australia soon, and the USA in 2012.
The way out, George, is the same as the way in. Let the free market decide. Shoving mandates down peoples throats like that dimwitted liar Julia Gillard is trying to do in Australia simply won’t work, and she’ll find herself knocked on her butt come next election. She must think people are too stupid to notice or care. People will embrace energy saving technology, but it takes time. And, the solution must have more value, not less. The modern world wasn’t built in 100 days, and neither will the postmodern.
Mark A says:
May 4, 2011 at 11:12 pm
“Maybe it was in December last year, but I heard on the wireless this morning that the UK has a heatwave and bush fires, no rain in sight.”
We’ve had a nice warm April, unusual but not in any way unprecedented. I still wore my fleece jacket to work this morning though it warmed up a bit in the afternoon (as it tends to in spring). Here in Sussex we’ve had small amounts of rain overnight the last few nights. More rain is forecast. We’ve had a lot nicer time recently than most of North America in Weather terms.
The fires here have been started by moronic arsonists – police haven’t yet discovered whether, like in Israel, the perps were Green activists (sarc).
http://hauntingthelibrary.wordpress.com/2011/01/13/environmentalist-starts-israels-worst-ever-fire-greenpeace-blames-global-warming/
“Canada this week, Australia soon, and the USA in 2012.” And the UK never, not while all three political parties speak with a single voice on all the major issues. As far as energy policy is concerned, you can have any policy you like as long as it’s Green and runs on wind power.
This Guy is a total Flake. Remember as a journalist he still has to make a living after this Crusade has collapsed, so he has to shift his position to appear to remain relevant, and he likes to portray that it’s him doing it first ahead of all the other gullibles, but he’ll soon be back on message , just like was after he’d got over the shock of Climategate. Whatever he’s saying today, it’ll be somfhhhing else tomorrow. ‘e’s a journalist fer goodness sake – ‘e’s got to keep mixing it.
Yes Dirk H. @1.05pm, that Climate Deniers pack of cards thing was a total disgrace. Utterly offensive an’ ‘e’s been peddling it for years. Some folk have no shame and no sense of what is constant or true.
stephen richards says:
May 5, 2011 at 3:29 am
“Journalists like politicans have 2 skills, lying and deceiving. Sometimes they do both to themselves. Monbiot has been doing both for too long. We, the world, have no need of his prognostications and no need of his (what is the word in english?) public self -flagelation ? ”
Agreed.
“None of us yet has a convincing account of how humanity can get out of this mess.” What “mess” does he mean, I wonder? Sure, there are lots of problems, as there always have been. But making energy more expensive than it needs to be, thus hobbling economies worldwide only adds to the problems, making them far worse. The problem greenies have, Monbiot included, is that they see “carbon” as the bogeyman, yet their demonized molecule is as green as they come.
It’s fun watching them spin their wheels, getting nowhere, stuck on C02.
mpaul,
In their own words:
What I find incredibly ironic with the Australian situation, is that much of the country’s wealth and individual prosperity (resources industry aside) gained over the past 10-15 years has flowed to the small business/family business community, who are the loudest voices on the pro-carbon tax stance. Many of these are in fact young singles and couples who’ve set up small businesses in boutique areas like IT, fashion/jewellry, arts and crafts, personal welfare (ie. fitness, mentorship, life coaching), architecture/design, freelance journalism, homewares and home services/franchising.
And yet these small business owners who have done incredbly well out of reforms to business and industrial relations over the past decade, are the big supporters of the Greens, and ironically its Greens policies (such as a carbon tax/emissions trading among other business constraining policies, esp in IR) that will eat into their own personal wealth more than they ever care to imagine. And yet (and Im friends with many in this category), these people haven’t a single clue about climate science or even the basic fundamentals of natural science.
Its this growing modern Petite Bourgeoisie’ class in Australia that seems to be the sole supporters of a carbon tax. I would also be assuming its similiar in North America nad Europe. I would love to hear what others are noticing?
This waffling stooge is simply trying to soften us up by pulling our heartstrings. The majority if alarmists would gleefully have us all hanged if the vote was ever available to them. Georgie Porgie Puddin’ Pie is one of their guiding lights. He is a a one man PR firm, selling bunny rabbit shaped land mines. Science is not natural. Savagery is what we are still up against. Or maybe I just have the running gun blues.
Peter Taylor says:
May 5, 2011 at 11:07 am
“The ‘free market’ so many like to espouse is no respecter of the environment and it is the poor and vulnerable who get the most degraded surroundings.”
You should get out more. The world is just chock full of poor people who live in pristine environments. Those who live in degraded surroundings often do so because there is something in those surroundings that they want. In the USA, the poor move to cities because they want the services, luxuries, and opportunities for personal growth that cities provide. In the USA, some of those who live in cities find that their environments are relatively degraded. For example, how many people in New York City pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for a studio apartment and alternate-side-of-the-street parking? For them, life on the farm was far more healthy and predictable but it was lonely and lacked the 24/7/365 stimulation and opportunities for personal growth that NYC provides. The same principle applies to the slums around Mexico City.
The comments section is a keeper.
The real face of the modern “environmental” movement. Pleasant lot aren’t they?
EternalOptimist says:
May 5, 2011 at 12:19 am
If only man could harness the power of Julia Gillards jaw
I’ve been trying, but she’s still ahead by a nose.
“All of us in the environment movement, in other words – whether we propose accommodation, radical downsizing or collapse – are lost. None of us yet has a convincing account of how humanity can get out of this mess.”
Just because someone has good intentions doesn’t mean they can clearly understand what will be required to mitigate any damage. After all, it was environmentalists whose policy preferences set the stage for Yellowstone park nearly burning to the ground a few years ago.
How many year’s worth of total urban air pollution were the Yellowstone fires equal to? The smoke cast a pall downwind that was visible to the east coast of the US.
But I digress. The “mess” as Monbiot calls it, is caused by insufficient prosperity, not excessive prosperity. Who wants to pollute? When a person can afford to be clean, it becomes the easy preference. Yet it is the policies of people like Monboit that directly destroy our ability to grow economically and by which we will move towards solving the “mess” he complains about.
That environmentalists lament and fret about prosperity shows their real agenda. This is confirmed when their solutions only destroy liberty and prosperity. The time was when we had sufficient prosperity to entertain their demands, but no more. We must focus on economic efficiency that is consistent with low environmental burden, but we must remember that without the wealth, we cannot afford the costs of low pollution activities.
Gareth Phillips says May 5, 2011 at 2:27 am: I must admit that my solar powered water heating, insulation and renewable energy source ( I burn coppiced ash) has saved me a fortune in energy bills. I also like growing my own food and keep livestock. Am I an environmentalist or a clever capitalist?
Gareth, There are so many imponderables in your short statement.
1. Have you done an proper economic analysis of the amount of money you have saved (if any!), taking into account the capital cost of your solar powered water heating system?
2. Did you receive a subsidy of any kind for its purchase and installation (hidden or otherwise)? What about repairs?
3. Ditto all the above for your house insulation?
4. Do you own the land on which the coppiced ash grows? Do you account for the time you take to cut it down and feed it into your boiler? What about the time taken for re-planting? All these factors make a difference to its cost effectiveness as a fuel.
4. Growing your own food and keeping your own livestock takes a lot of time and effort. Have you costed the time spent on these activities?
5. In your main job, are you an above or below average earner ? If the latter, are you taking into account the free benefits you accrue as a subsidised member of your society at the high earners’ expense?
If you have done all these things and you still come out with a positive result, good on you – you are indeed a self-interested capitalist. But whether you are a good environmentalist is a separate question, unanswerable without further information and analysis. And irrelevant to the debate in this blog trail since, one hopes, everyone (warmist and skeptic alike) strives towards good environmentalism.
theBuckWheat says:
But I digress. The “mess” as Monbiot calls it, is caused by insufficient prosperity, not excessive prosperity. Who wants to pollute? When a person can afford to be clean, it becomes the easy preference. Yet it is the policies of people like Monboit that directly destroy our ability to grow economically and by which we will move towards solving the “mess” he complains about.
Excellent point, which can be seen on a smaller scale anywhere that landfill restrictions are put in place.
Where I live, our local landfills don’t accept yard waste (don’t ask me why) so you can’t just put it out with the trash. Instead, you have to take it to a special collection center and pay an extra fee. The result? In early January, the sides of the road are littered with dead christmas trees, and most people in the area just burn their yardwaste.
Where I used to live, they enacted a ban on small appliances at the landfills, and set up special receiving centers (with appropriate fees) to deal with them. The result? Microwaves, toaster ovens, and coffee makers strewn all over the sides of back roads.
Neither regulation resulted in the desired effect.
“So the greens have started to do the frigging sums at last – but so now must nuclear advocates – they don’t add up either!”
Naturally. No one will let them add up; they just scream louder that it can’t be done.
@Mark A
‘Maybe it was in December last year, but I heard on the wireless this morning that the UK has a heatwave and bush fires, no rain in sight’
Rain started in Scotland yesterday lunchtime and continued at least until I left at 14:00 today. Back here in London rain is forecast for tomorrow.
Do not believe everything you hear on the wireless.
There is, right now, a virtually unlimited source of energy – Shale Gas.
Available from vast reservoirs under every continent, and easily extracted using the still developing technology of fraking.
The excellent report written by Matt Ridley for Lord Lawson’s Global Warming Policy Foundation lays out the facts:
http://thegwpf.org/images/stories/gwpf-reports/Shale-Gas_4_May_11.pdf
I hope greens will give up the Co2 argument and use all their energies and focus and place it on black carbon mitigation. There’s the one particulate we should be eliminating tomorrow and we would all see beneficial effects of it’s removal shortly thereafter.
Dear Anthony, what you are (falsely, I believe) assuming is that reality matters to Monbiot. He is a marketing/propagandist writer, and the article is just a call for more and stronger revolutionary struggle, and a betterment of technique in attaining the same preconceived goal. It is “magic writing” in that it is an age old technique of marxist self-criticism (it existed long before that, of course, only the “critical” standards are different) engaged in finding new, better ways of achieving the goals, which never change. That is what “goal orientated” means. They goal is set, only means are subject to change. He is not even concerned with finding better ways to fight “climate change”, only with new ways of persuading the public that their way is the only possible one. That is his goal.
“rbateman says: May 4, 2011 at 8:39 pm
Man’s worst inventions are still Greed and the Lust for Power, neither of which advances any hope of a brighter future.”
What you miss is that individual freedom supported by defense against initiation of force, which police, courts, and military do, counters greed and powerlust by providing choice and stopping those who would force you.
Your type of claim overlooks that humans are creative and productive, and will work for good when they have to take the consequences of their own actions.
In contrast, Marxism – which most environmentalists believe in substantial part whether they recognize the source or not – teaches a “fixed pie”, thus someone who has something cannot have earned it, and teaches that humans will “drive to the bottom”. Environmentalists fail to look out the window and see the gardens and replanting of trees that humans undertake when ownership gives incentive. Even within the building environmentalists ignore the clean water from their tap, and the solid roof over their head. Why are they so blind?
Yes, Christianity teaches some of the same things, thus I am not surprised that Canadian Green Party leader Elizabeth May is becoming an Anglican minister, but the actions of Christians seems to vary widely (the Amway dealer from Spokane in contrast to the leftist Bishops in Seattle, for example) and there’s only half of Marx’ famous saying in the bible.
As for resource shortages, I suggest reading the books “The Doomsday Myth” and “The Resourceful Earth”.
(BTW, the definition of “greed” varies with ideology, as the “fixed pie” mentality considers consumption greed because it takes away from others (recall that production is not possible).)