The War Between Humans And Themselves

I was listening to Science Friday, hosted by NPR's Ira Flatow. During the second hour on Friday, Flatow held a roundtable discussion with the provocative title Are We Losing the Race Against Climate Change?

The participants were—

• Henry Waxman
  Member, US House of Representatives (D-CA) Ranking member, House Energy and Commerce Committee Los Angeles, California
• Eileen Claussen
  President, Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES) Arlington, Virginia
• John Ashton
  Former climate change ambassador, United Kingdom, Co-founder, E3G, Independent commentator on politics and diplomacy of climate change London, England
• Michael Mann
  Author, The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines, (Columbia University Press, 2012), Distinguished Professor, Department of Meteorology and Geosciences Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania

Flatow kicked off the segment by playing that oft-replayed quote from Barack Obama's 2nd inaugural address, and then had Michael Mann give us a brief overview of the state of the science, and how much warming we can expect in a Business-As-Usual (BAU) scenario.

There followed a long, tortuous discussion which looked at various policy initiatives which address global warming, or lack thereof, in the United States, China and India. For example, California is now kicking off a carbon cap & trade market. On the other hand, India now has more coal-fired power plants in the works than China does.

I should note that "cap & trade" and other strategies are merely subterfuges which give the appearance of doing something of substance without addressing the core issues regarding climate. This strategy is akin to the imposition of overly large fishing quotas in overfished parts of the oceans.

No one doubted that BAU and the concomitant growth in CO₂-equivalent emissions are possible over the next 50-60 years, but nevermind.

Now, as soon as humans ask the question are we losing the race against climate change?, it becomes clear that the race is already lost. And it was the very nature of the Science Friday discussion, its twists and turns, that made the answer crystal clear in this case. For example, much of the discussion revolved around the chances that the U.S., or China, or India, would make the "right" choices going forward to move toward low-carbon economies. Needless to say, the participants were forced to admit that the odds were not good in all the cases considered.

All the participants seemed to assume that such choices are possible.

Unfortunately, no transcript is available, so you will have to listen to that discussion by following the link above to verify for yourself the points I've just made.

But why is this the case? Why is the race lost as soon as humans ask the question?

This is a deeper question than it might appear to be at first blush, for the answer hinges around the delusion that humans are making choices (or have choices to make) with respect to emissions and concomitant warming of the Earth's surface. But as Mann made clear in his opening remarks, the window of opportunity to keep that warming below 2°C (averaged across the Earth's surface) is closing very rapidly. If emissions do not peak and decline in the very near future, the window will be closed altogether. See my recent post Climate Change — Rethinking "Rethinking Wedges".

To maintain the illusion that humans have the capacity to make choices, and thus might make good choices in the future, the war between humans and themselves must be posed as a question—are we losing the race... (You might ask who "we" are in a race against.) Asking a question leaves the matter up in the air. It appears to be quite impossible for humans to take the next (and obvious) logical step, and acknowledge that—

We (as a species) have not been able to change our behavior such that we can avoid 2°C (or more) of warming of the Earth's surface. Reality dictates that we have lost the race to avoid dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate.

You are not allowed to say it is a race against time. That formulation merely begs the question.

And in fact, the Science Friday discussion divvies up humans into political categories like "the United States", and "China", and "India". And then, within these categories, further subcategories are recognized (like "Republicans" and "Democrats" in the United States, and similarly for the others). And in this way, the war is lost, and the Awful Truth avoided. We get the same futile discussion over and over again. This has been going on for many years now.

Once one permits himself the basic observation given above, obvious questions arise, for instance—

What leads us to believe that we humans will be able to make good choices in the future which we have heretofore failed to make? In short, what is the basis for our hopes?

As we might expect—as it must be, I believe—the Science Friday panel discussion at no point enters this forbidden territory. See my post on "free will" called The Limits Of Free Will In Human Action.

Unfortunately, unless the general discussion among humans regarding the climate (and many other things) enters the taboo terra incognita I have briefly described, there will be no winners in the war between humans and themselves.

Comments

[Mike Roberts]

Quite right; if humans, collectively, haven't made the "right" choices up to now, with the climate science having been clear for so long, there is no basis for thinking that they might make such choices in the future. It will be interesting (among other things) to see what choices are made after the race is lost.

[John D. Wheeler]

I think I read that Winston Churchill said, "Americans can be counted on to do the right thing, when they have exhausted all other options." I agree there is no hope that humans will CHOOSE to do the right things, but that does not mean that we will not DO the right things. But I doubt it will be while there are multiple options left and I kinda hope that that remaining option isn't to simply die.

[Oliver]

Thanks Dave, it's always so illuminating and intriguing when you discuss 'choice', which is obviously wrapped up in the concept of 'free will'.

We are led to believe - via the age-old human propaganda/cheerleading machine - that we are a special/superior species because of our gift of free will. Yet everything that ensues in human conduct suggests that we don't choose, we merely act out our nature, whatever our nature happens to be or has become through our combination of genes, survival instinct and life experience. Therefore you're right to point out that we are deluded if we think we have the capacity to make meaningful choices. (Obviously, we can force the situation, such as consciously doing the opposite thing to 'normal', in an attempt to prove we have free will, but this is a false proof because we are acting out of nature just for the sake of argument.)

You have helped me understand that a psychopath isn't choosing to be a bastard to other people, such as by hitting them on the head and grabbing their wallet (common street mugger) or conning them out of their money (Wall Street mugger) - they are doing this simply because that's what they do. In the same way, humans as a whole are not choosing to maim the environment through rapacious extraction and use of natural resources, this is just what we do as par for the course for Homo sapiens. (As an aside, I now realize that the self-enriching motivation regardless of cost to the Earth that underpins our conduct en masse is the outward face of this internal animalistic drive.)

And yes, any debate that ignores this salient point is a waste of breath. My view is that any residue of hope that is held for us humans should be reserved for the idea that we might possibly evolve over time into a form of genus Homo that does not have the same base nature as our current species. Very fanciful in the circumstances, agreed. But this is a tiny flame that keeps my core temperature above 'hopeless'.

[Peter]

Dave, I to listened to this Friday, and while I agree with your observations, I also found it interesting that 2 of the guests (not the politicians) were trying to articulate just how critical the state of things is. Too little, too late? Undoubtedly, but I heard some of the first signs that scientists are realizing they must raise the alarm. Or was I just projecting...?

[Makati1]

The race ended years ago when the greedy, selfish Americans laughed at President Carter when he warned that this would happen and put solar cells on the White House roof. We lost. Now it is just a matter of finding out the penalty and how it will play out. It certainly will not be good for homo sapiens as a species. Unfortunately we will take most of the other species along with us into extinction.

Who was the race against? You could say Mother Nature. You could say The Law of Energy. You could say it was a race between intelligence and stupidity. You could say it is anything but the reality is, we lost. Who won? Well, there is a good chance bacteria will continue to exist and maybe roaches will be the next dominant species that inhabits the earth, but it will not be humans.

[Jim]

The simple truth is that the industrialized and developing nations will not accept greatly reduced power usage and a drop in standards of living (the only real answer to climate change) willingly. One only needs to have watched the Super Bowl to see that in action. The power went out in half the stadium, and there was a total shutdown. They couldn't play in half power.

It's why peak oil/coal/gas is the only viable 'solution' going, because the downslope after the plateaus will force an albeit unwilling change in practices.

The real question is how dramatic the peak effects will be - and a lot of this will be answered by how accurately classical economists view the nature of reality. If they are right, and energy and any resource can be replaced efficiently and endlessly in the market, then we are up a creek. There's no way we will avoid even the highest ends of temperature rise predictions. The market will continue to expand until it consumes all the oceans and all the land. I personally don't think that can happen - I think the limits will hamper our ability to do so. But then, I'm an optimist.