Home / Energy / Climate change dialogues: denialists and the disadvantaged

Climate change dialogues: denialists and the disadvantaged

| March 27, 2015

Many individuals and communities feel disempowered or ignorant when discussing climate change. Megan Bonetti says we need to foster a non-judgemental culture of awareness to make key stakeholders sit up and listen.

Recently I had a conversation with a close friend on climate change. The discussion captivated me with the multilayered tensions of the global north and capitalist ideologies that doggedly influence the very present concern of global warming and relating social policy.

Amongst a general catch-up I queried my friend’s thoughts on climate change issues. His stark and unexpected response, “we evolve, we move on.”

…Excuse me?

I admired the honesty. His was a real-world response of neo-liberal thought. It was brutal and it was heartless. At least he had the guts to say what many are thinking (Cook, 2014).

The social worker in me petitioned him with the human impacts: African farmers encumbered by draught (Dube et al., 2013; Kurukulasuriya et al., 2006; Mayer, 2013), Pacific Islanders inundated by sea water (IPCC, 2014; PIANGO, 2014, Duvat, 2013), people leaving their homelands due to ever-increasing health and environmental dangers (National Geographic, 2015; UNHCR, 2011).

Again, he fired back with “survival of the fittest” rhetoric.

Unfortunately the climate movement has failed to gain the widespread appeal needed to pass significant climate policy and practical reform (Bullard & Müller, 2012). Industrial giants continue to produce and pollute, and people like my friend devalue the real catastrophe that is climate change (Amnesty International, 2014, 2015; Cook, 2015). While global aid organisations declare humanitarian catastrophe as a result of manmade pollution, industrial conservatives spin myths of global evolution and adaption (IPCC, 2014; Cook, 2014; UNFCCC, 2015).

Local, national and global repetition of climate change catastrophe does not seem to be creating a civilizational wake up call. Moreover messages delivered in the language of fires, floods, droughts and extinction don’t seem to be blatant enough to be convincing (Klein, 2014; McKinnon, 2014). So if individuals like my friend and carbon emitters like AGL energy aren’t listening, what can we do (CER, 2015, Garnaut, 2011)?

Upon hearing my friend’s response to climate change I felt the need to blame him and many like him for their self-righteous ideologies that have significantly impacted the global poor (Böhm, 2012). However, history shows that the human race is really good at pointing blame. Years earlier I too was reluctant to participate in the climate conversation. The debate seemed wonky with excessive jargon. Yet I was unwittingly converted from the influences of a conservative upbringing to that of a less traditional “tree-hugger.” So, how did this happen?

There was no halogen light-bulb moment, nor was I convinced by the volatile debate and environmental doom. For me, it was the slow unpacking of climate change in a tangible context. This was influenced through a community of people who impacted my values on sustainable living and more importantly did not guilt trip me if I put gladwrap in the recycling bin.

Studies have shown that many individuals and communities feel disempowered or ignorant when discussing climate change, so in response there is silence (Szarka, 2013). Researchers suggest that protecting the rights of those disadvantaged by climate change will only occur when a non-judgemental culture of education and awareness is fostered in the discussion (Sasser, 2014; Smith, 2011). Only when climate change becomes an accessible conversation rather than a heated debate will key stakeholders sit up and listen (Head et al., 2014; Luers, 2013).

A movement for positive change in the environment will spread only when people, like my friend, can drop their defences and feel empowered to enter the conversation (Abney-Korn et al., 2013).

REFERENCES

SHARE WITH:

0 Comments

  1. Max Thomas

    Max Thomas

    March 27, 2015 at 10:28 pm

    Climate change dialogues: denialists and the disadvantaged

    Megan, I enjoyed reading your piece: "Climate change dialogues: denialists and the disadvantaged." I am concerned that some climate change rhetoric is 'evolving' in a 'selective' and distinctly misanthropic direction. The following is an abstract from a longer article I have published on 'population and the environment' that I think intersects with your thinking. I hope it will encourage you to continue the struggle against 'social Darwinism' and it may even win over your friend.

    It’s not unusual to hear the claim that overpopulation is the greatest problem facing humanity. I certainly would not argue that unlimited population growth is desirable, but there is little doubt that the world can feed its present population. Food is exported from some of the poorest countries while great quantities of grain are fed to cattle in the richest nations. Political and religious strife, war and economic injustice drive millions from access to land, water and other resources. But is environmental pollution the inevitable consequence of population increase or is it at least in part, the product of human behaviour? Enormous environmental damage was done in Australia by a very small population during the nineteenth and early twentieth century. The Yarra River in Melbourne became a ‘sewer’ not long after European settlement. The legacy of great wealth achieved by our ancestors was built on hard toil clearing land, building roads, railways, mines, dams and power stations etc. Other economic activities, especially gold mining, land clearing and drainage, to name just a few, externalized their costs to the environment. Environmental degradation not only damaged the natural attributes of our country but it imposed additional costs on most goods and services. The introduction of pest animals and plants is another form of environmental damage that remains with us today. Some of these environmental problems are intractable but in some respects, the environment in Australia has improved as the population has increased. While there is ample scope for further improvement, considerable progress has been made with air quality in our cities, land management and the health of rivers. My contention is that the global distribution of wealth and resource consumption is so massively skewed that population per se, is a secondary issue. This matters because unquestioning acceptance of an essential nexus between population and environmental damage may lead to a rationalization of severe economic injustice, or worse. Energy consumption and the resultant carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions per capita in the US or Australia, for example, are far greater than in developing countries. In other words, even modest per capita reductions in energy consumption by the wealthiest countries would more than balance the relatively minor increase that is occurring in poor nations. In crude terms, emissions would not reduce much if most of the world’s poorest people moved to another planet. Topical examples of energy extravagance are the Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix motor race and the ICC Cricket World Cup. The Grand Prix calendar consists of 20 races around the world. About 700 tonnes of cars and equipment is air-freighted to each event. The distance traveled annually is approximately 160,000km. The estimated CO2 emitted for this much airfreight over that distance is 107,000 tonnes. The Cricket World Cup is comprised of approximately 50 matches, 36 of these are day/night games. Some matches will take longer than others etc, and different venues have different lighting; the power sources also vary. But for an indication of power consumption, the MCG lights draw 1.8 megawatts. That’s enough power for 700 to 1,000 Australian homes. Burning brown coal to generate enough power to run the MCG lights for 4 hours, results in the emission of 9 tonnes of CO2. If all of the day/night games were played at the MCG, the total CO2 emitted would be more than 300 tonnes. In India, where cricket is almost a religion, micro-loan programs are enabling millions of families to purchase small solar panels with batteries for household lighting and small enterprises. Some of these systems are built by village cooperatives and they provide reliable power for cooking and lighting for their children to study. These are life-changing advances in rural India, just as they were 100 years ago in Australia. The energy consumed by one day/night cricket match at the MCG is roughly equivalent to the energy produced by 60,000 of these small household solar power units. Extreme ‘Malthusian’ environmental theory tends to undervalue human life. The following is very recent comment on social media: “The Earth is responding to a parasite: Humans. In the end the Earth will survive and Homo Sapiens hopefully go extinct.” Misanthropic statements such as ‘the planet would be better off without the people’ or ‘aid programs only make the population problem worse’ are not a great distance in logic from genocide by neglect, if not by force. Even if we accept that reducing the population would bring about a return to the Garden of Eden, how would this be achieved? Who would decide? Having reached the desired population level, presumably the ‘ideal’ demographic profile would somehow be maintained by way of consensus as it never has been before. Land, water, energy and other resources would be equitably shared in this green paradise. I have my doubts.