The Unforgivable Sin

I heard the following discussion in a New Yorker podcast in which David Remnick interviews Elizabeth Kolbert. They are discussing the upcoming Paris climate talks. The quote starts at the 9:47 mark and runs to the end.

Remnick — Isn't this part of the problem? That in addition to the fact that we all have to change the way we live, the way we move around the globe, etc., etc., the political way [the climate issue] is discussed, and the intricacies of having to do it on an international level with countries having radically different interests, make it so hard to get from point A to B when we have to get to Z.

Kolbert —  Absolutely, absolutely, and that is the situation that we're in ... definitely a reasonable person could look at ... the geophysics and economics and the politics in despair. That is, I think, a very reasonable response. 

But, that being said...

Remnick — [interrupts] You don't have to be religious to know that despair is the one unforgivable sin.

Kolbert — [laughs] Exactly, Exactly! 

Remnick — The politicians will come home from Paris and you are assessing the meeting in Paris. What will you consider success? And what would you consider failure?

Kolbert —  If we come out of Paris with a sort of agreement that emissions must peak soon and start coming down, that would be considered success. Now, does it mean emissions will peak soon and start to come down? I can't promise you that, but [if there's] a sense that we have momentum, and therefore we're heading in a certain direction — I know this sounds horribly vague and not enough to hang the future of the planet on — but I'm going to continue on anyway.

... the idea is that this will become a virtuous cycle, money and investment will follow the direction and the signals given in Paris, that is the best we can hope for [ends]

The unforgivable sin is despair. What is despair?

the complete loss or absence of hope

From a perspective outside Flatland, we immediately see why despair is unforgivable, for it is forbidden for humans to seriously contemplate bad outcomes. This is literally unthinkable. Humans are hardwired for hope, as neuroscientist Tali Sharot and others have demonstrated. 

But why are human hardwired for hope? Why is despair unforgivable?

Here we can tell a very plausible "just-so" story, bearing in mind that all such stories are a form of 

ad hoc fallacy, an unverifiable and unfalsifiable narrative explanation for a cultural practice, a biological trait, or behavior of humans or other animals.

In short, we are now making stuff up 

It is in the nature of life to be invested in the future, to provide for its own continuance, to evolve and grow. We are invested in the future through our progeny. This is no less true of humans than it is for any other animal. But we see right away that the complete absence of hope is incompatible with being invested in the future through our offspring. You can't be invested in the future if there is no future, or if it will be very difficult (if not impossible) for your progeny to thrive in the future. The future must always be better or at least no worse (in some sense) than the present and the past.

And thus humans are hardwired for hope. The fact that humans can not see their characteristic optimism —it arises out of the unconscious—reinforces our understanding that obligatory hope is instinctual.

That's my "just so" story and I'm sticking to it, though any "reasonable" person (quoting Kolbert) might be forgiven for despairing about the human response to climate change so far.

Comments

[Jim]

"hardwired for hope"

I don't see how this can be argued against, and I think it's the key to the climate story.

Following it, our inability to seriously ponder the worst causes us to only prepare for the bad. Additionally, our innate optimism and hope for the success of our preparations causes us to severely overestimate their effect, with the end result that even our weakened preparations often fall woefully short of their intended effect.

That's what's happening in Paris. We're approaching the negotiations with most nations on board to combat the bad, but not the worst, and much of the effort will be in the form of future promises, most to all of which are likely to be severely over-estimated. We'll be going after the low-hanging fruit of emissions and we'll have the tendency to minimize growth factors, the emissions of replacements (like biomass and natural gas), and the emissions from developing nations.

It's politically unpalatable for most nations to see complete failure in Paris. We will get some sort of agreement. The governmental leaders and the media will then tout the "success" of the event. The story will be that it's not enough, but it's a start - and that's what Kolbert is referencing.

What's likeliest, though, are 3 things: 1) the fund for developing nations to "leapfrog" fossil fuels will lack clarity and fall short of targets (and even $100 billion a year is far too short of what's needed), 2) the non-binding promises will be based on over-optimistic analysis for a variety of reasons, and 3) the "success" of Paris will actually cause many nations to ease up for a few years in implementing their goals, as the political pressure will be temporarily relaxed.

The foundation for believing that Paris can be later improved upon would be the majority of nations reaching their intended targets from Paris in the next 1-2 decades. However, if this doesn't happen, there won't be an improvement of Paris as much as a modification of it.

Assuming there isn't a crippling economic crash of some sort in the next few decades, it's pretty likely that we'll see quite a lot of renewables deployment in that time. I'd also say it's likely that coal use will peak globally, and more quickly than we considered even 5 years ago. However, it's also likely that all of our efforts, as global growth continues, will keep us on a track of 3-4 degrees C warming - and that's without many positive feedbacks factored in or surprises like what's going on in Indonesia being considered.

Our innate optimism will be large reason for this failure.

Now, here's the "success" of Paris put another way. Instead of "it wasn't enough, but it's a great start", it's "we couldn't currently treat the issue seriously enough, so we made a bunch of non-binding promises towards reducing only a percentage of emissions by going after the easiest sources to reduce with the assumption that most nations would keep these promises in faltering economies and shifting national governments, and then we hoped that we'd improve them further".

But, it'd be unforgivable to say that.