Extinction rebellion in London. Credit: Brais G. Rouco / Barcroft Media via Getty Images
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The state of the planet is forcing itself into the centre of the human mind. For increasing numbers of people, climate change is a palpable fact. Island communities and coastal cities are suffering the effects of rising sea levels, and all of us experience extreme weather and disjointed seasons.
Centre-ground politicians have accepted that some kind of action, more radical than any that has been implemented so far, has become urgently necessary. Everyone but the most stubborn climate denialists realises that an unprecedented change is taking place in the world that humans have inhabited throughout their history.
At the same time, as T.S. Eliot wrote in Four Quartets, “humankind cannot bear very much reality”, and thinking on the subject is increasingly delusional. A by-product of worldwide industrialisation based on fossil fuels, the shift that is underway was set in motion by human beings. It does not follow however that humans can stop it.
As climate scientists have pointed out, global warming will continue for hundreds or thousands of years after its proximate causes have been removed. The demands made by Extinction Rebellion – net zero carbon emissions for the UK by 2025, for example – are impossibly draconian. But even if they could be enforced, they would make little impact on greenhouse gases worldwide, or prevent the climate disruption that is already baked into the system. Green movements at the present time are expressions of magical thinking – attempts to ignore and escape reality, rather than understand and adapt to it.
One of the realities Green thinking passes over is geopolitics. Consider the fashionable idea that the world – or at least the capitalist West – should stop burning fossil fuels. From an environmental point of view, this may be highly desirable — even though it will not arrest disruptive climate change. In geopolitical terms, it is a recipe for global upheaval. Some of the world’s most pivotal states depend on fossil fuels for their existence. Saudi Arabia would collapse without the revenues the kingdom receives from the oil market. Iran and Russia rely on high oil prices for much of their national income. For all of these countries, abruptly ending the consumption of fossil fuels would mean a massive drop in living standards and large-scale political disruption. All the better, Greens may say – these are hardly desirable regimes.
But it would be folly to assume that what emerged would be any better. The Saudi kingdom would fragment or be replaced by a more radical Islamist regime. An impoverished Russia could well be more belligerent and adventurist in its foreign and defence policies. With Iran starved of income from fossil fuels and no prospect of revenues being resumed, any prospect of democratic transformation in the country would diminish not increase. Regime change induced by Green policies is no more likely to work than regime change imposed by military force.
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SubscribeInteresting. Thankyou.
One point that occurs to me re population and ‘steady state’. The population transition in Europe and elsewhere is strong associated with increased opportunity for each child.
Pre-transition, someone with more children is “richer”. Under a fixed-income (per capital) situation, an extended family with more people in it is richer.
Transition occurs in large part when increased investment per capita in fewer children is a better strategy for families.
Of course this is a narrow perspective but the underlying dynamics are realistic. A steady state economy is likley to reverse the demographic transition and create a worse population crisis.
A penetrating article by Gray which dissects some of ‘agency’ problems of progressive environmentalists, while fully acknowledging the bleak reality. A peculiar lack of comments here – is this because Unherd had a smaller readership back then? Or is it simply too clear-eyed to bear?