George Monbiot, a modern Calvinist
Global warming is going to happen so we should work out ways of dealing with it, and geo-engineering is one rational way out of the labyrinth. We have to go under the knife and the fact that you, George Monbiot, downplay the importance of geo-engineering is neither here nor there.
Echoing the author of the Gaia Hypothesis, J. E Lovelock, David Deutsch in his TED talk pointed out that it was already too late to prevent global warming. It is already a disaster. The actions taken to reduce CO2 are not even purported to solve the problem. The lesson seems clear to him. We need a stance of problem fixing not just problem avoidance.
He goes on to say that the world is buzzing with plans to reduce gas emissions at all costs, but that, instead, it should be buzzing with plans to reduce global temperature, and reduce the higher temperature efficiently and cheaply. He notes that, at the moment, these initiatives are on the fringe, but says they should be central.
Deutsch says global warming was an issue before we knew it was an issue. It was already too late in the seventies to prevent climate change. If we did not even know we were causing this problem, as Deutsche pointed out, then these problems are not primarily a moral issue.
It is the moral stance of the climate change prevention activists that I find objectionable. The question is not really a moral one. It is a moral one only to the extent that it is a systemic and political issue. The problem is also a technical one. Like finding the cure for bacterial infection, discovering a way to make crops produce more food, or inventing a form of energy that can be transmitted to every home. Penicillin, chemical fertilizer and AC current respectively.
I sense the submerged Calvinist instinct in Monbiot's approach and that of his fellow moralists, who use the issue of global warming as a stick to beat people with. Perhaps the corollary for climate change activists raging against over consumption, is the born again Christians raving against homosexual intercourse. Yes, unprotected anal intercourse does lead to the spread of AIDS, but tone it down a notch or ten.
God and hell-fire no longer apply, but the new crusaders have the same Calvinist aims: Eat less meat. Limit your consumption. Don't use the heater. Don't travel. And you should add. And stop having dirty sex and farting. Geo-engineering is portrayed by Monbiot as a ridiculous distraction. He caricatures one geo-engineering idea as a Heath Robinson device and by extension the whole field. He employs a rhetorical device, a logical fallacy. The ridicule of one idea is his weapon of choice to ridicule all geo-engineering ideas.
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Embracing the intellect and science not spurious arguments about morality. The moral bullies don't think much of geo-engineering because it cramps their style, it is a usurper. The whole debate needs to be turned from one of blame into a more technical practical and political one.
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The proponents of global warming remind me of the old saints and martyrs, or of the people who used to be passionate about macrobiotics.They seem slightly derranged in their fervor. We should question the psychology of these people. What is the psychology of a 'moral crusade' against global warming? Guilt about a privileged upbringing? God knows. Or Freud knows.
Moral crusades allow people to be sanctimonious and and berate. The global warming debate is the perfect arena for moral bullies.But moral bullies are not attracted to the question of dealing with a problem that was created even before humanity knew it existed they are attracted to the question of global warming because it allows them to be sanctimonious moral bullies - they used to chose Trotskiism. While the climate change activists bully, they also portray themselves as victims. Victims, as we know, always have the high ground. Monbiot's telephone is surely tapped.
David Deutsch hit the nail on the head. Ignore the moral bullies. Problems are inevitable, but problems are solvable. Global warming was out of control before we knew it existed. It's not a personal moral problem. Our energies should not be going into preventing a problem that we could never have prevented anyway, but into understanding the problem and engineering solutions to it.
The emphasis needs to turn away from blaming and become more technical, practical and political. Embrace the intellect and science not spurious arguments about morality Monbiot. Moral bullies don't think much of geo-engineering because it cramps their style, it usurps their function and vocation. Geo-engineering, in addition to CO2 reduction, is the only way forward.
Technical solutions would make people like Monbiot irrelevant and that's a good thing. Would he welcome his irrelevance? Would he welcome a battery of technical solutions to this problem of having to cope with life on a warmer planet?
Of course there are political issues involved, but those are systemic, issues of entrenched power, of the weakness of government legislation in the face of corporations. The weakness of national governments in the face of global problems. Those are serious issues, but they are not reducible to matters of individual choice.
And as for advocating nuclear power, well that is laughable, isn't it? Laughable after Fukushima but also laughable in the sense that advocating nuclear power means putting more political power into the hands of corporations and making the systemic problem far worse.
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