Editor’s note: This op-ed is by Bill McKibben, author of the groundbreaking investigative book about climate change, The End of Nature. McKibben is founder of the global climate campaign 350.org and a distinguished scholar at Middlebury College. This column first appeared in The Washington Post.
Caution: It is vitally important not to make connections. When you see pictures of rubble like this week’s shots from Joplin, Mo., you should not wonder: Is this somehow related to the tornado outbreak three weeks ago in Tuscaloosa, Ala., or the enormous outbreak a couple of weeks before that (which, together, comprised the most active April for tornadoes in U.S. history). No, that doesn’t mean a thing.
It is far better to think of these as isolated, unpredictable, discrete events. It is not advisable to try to connect them in your mind with, say, the fires burning across Texas — fires that have burned more of America at this point this year than any wildfires have in previous years. Texas, and adjoining parts of Oklahoma and New Mexico, are drier than they’ve ever been — the drought is worse than that of the Dust Bowl. But do not wonder if they’re somehow connected.
If you did wonder, you see, you would also have to wonder about whether this year’s record snowfalls and rainfalls across the Midwest — resulting in record flooding along the Mississippi — could somehow be related. And then you might find your thoughts wandering to, oh, global warming, and to the fact that climatologists have been predicting for years that as we flood the atmosphere with carbon we will also start both drying and flooding the planet, since warm air holds more water vapor than cold air.
It’s far smarter to repeat to yourself the comforting mantra that no single weather event can ever be directly tied to climate change. There have been tornadoes before, and floods — that’s the important thing. Just be careful to make sure you don’t let yourself wonder why all these record-breaking events are happening in such proximity — that is, why there have been unprecedented megafloods in Australia, New Zealand and Pakistan in the past year. Why it’s just now that the Arctic has melted for the first time in thousands of years. No, better to focus on the immediate casualties, watch the videotape from the store cameras as the shelves are blown over. Look at the news anchorman standing in his waders in the rising river as the water approaches his chest.
Because if you asked yourself what it meant that the Amazon has just come through its second 100-year drought in the past five years, or that the pine forests across the western part of this continent have been obliterated by a beetle in the past decade — well, you might have to ask other questions. Such as: Should President Obama really just have opened a huge swath of Wyoming to new coal mining? Should Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sign a permit this summer allowing a huge new pipeline to carry oil from the tar sands of Alberta? You might also have to ask yourself: Do we have a bigger problem than $4-a-gallon gasoline?
Better to join with the U.S. House of Representatives, which voted 240 to 184 this spring to defeat a resolution saying simply that “climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for public health and welfare.” Propose your own physics; ignore physics altogether. Just don’t start asking yourself whether there might be some relation among last year’s failed grain harvest from the Russian heat wave, and Queensland’s failed grain harvest from its record flood, and France’s and Germany’s current drought-related crop failures, and the death of the winter wheat crop in Texas, and the inability of Midwestern farmers to get corn planted in their sodden fields. Surely the record food prices are just freak outliers, not signs of anything systemic.
It’s very important to stay calm. If you got upset about any of this, you might forget how important it is not to disrupt the record profits of our fossil fuel companies. If worst ever did come to worst, it’s reassuring to remember what the U.S. Chamber of Commerce told the Environmental Protection Agency in a recent filing: that there’s no need to worry because “populations can acclimatize to warmer climates via a range of behavioral, physiological, and technological adaptations.” I’m pretty sure that’s what residents are telling themselves in Joplin today.
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Hey Bill
These extreme weather events are occurring at the same time our national debt has exploded. Therefore, I’m pretty sure the best way out of this mess is to cut taxes for the wealthy and privatize Medicare.
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Great, great article! This should be required reading for republicans, except that nothing this logical could ever have the slightest effect on that God-forsaken bunch of fools.
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If you want to know more, read Donella Meadows The Limits to Growth, Signet Books 1972, who almost forty years ago explained that we live in a finite world and predicted these consequences. This is the most important little book written in the 20th century and it is required reading for everyone.
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Mr. Webb,
Although there are plenty of logical, science-based arguments that make the same point that Mr. McKibben is attempting to convey, this particular article is little more than a sarcastic, eye-rolling spite-fest. If this is your standard for “logical,” then I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that calling vast swaths of the American public a “God-forsaken bunch of fools” is your version of political discourse.
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Though Bill is being sarcastic, as most of us can recognize, the fact is that we are facing severe problems. It is always better to “err on the side of caution” I have learned, and yet, our government and corporations are not being cautious. They are being reckless. We are creating climate change, running out of every nonrenewable resource there is, overusing many renewable resources to the point that they are becoming nonrenewable (think fish), and we are overpopulating the planet, while over 2 billion people are starving. Yet, our congress protects big oil and refuses to recognize climate change while poor people are becoming poorer, the elite 2% of rich people are richer than ever before, the climate is changing, more children are being born into this mess we have created, and we are running out of resources. Go figure.
Lisa Sammet, President, Vermonters For a Sustainable Population
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If a 100 million people believe a stupid thing, it’s still a stupid thing. While Mr. Kheiry has often said this same thing, about how condescending we sometimes sound, and while he has an argument, there is a point at which you get frustrated that people can so willfully ignore facts.
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Mr. Fairbanks,
You make an excellent point. I myself face that same frustration regularly; for example, the fact that raising the price of something means fewer people can afford it seems to be lost on tens of millions of people. Minimum wage laws are just one example of this. But because they are widely supported, I try hard not to assume people are intellectually challenged or willfully ignorant; rather, I keep in mind that people support what they believe is in their, and society’s, best interest, even if there are long-term ramifications and/or unintended consequences I feel they are ignoring.
I can understand anyone’s frustration regarding such situations, but political commentary – if it is to remain civil and focused on the issues, rather than devolving into infantile name-calling – requires that we check egos and temper-tantrums.
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Mr. Kheiry
Many of the people who are challenged to afford basic needs are working people at the bottom of the wage scale so the minimum wage helps them directly. Thus, instead of fewer people being able to afford things, more people can afford them. Even Henry Ford undestood this as he paid his workers enough to be able to buy the cars they produced.
As for other consumers, the difference between “market” rates and the minimum wage is a tiny percentage of the cost of goods & services. I looked at this issue in the context of the livable wage years ago and estimated that it would raise the price of a two dollar loaf of bread by a few cents. Clearly, this would have no impact on the number of people who could afford that loaf of bread.
Moreover, without the min. wage, the costs of public assistance would be even higher (another subsidy for low-wage employers).
Sometimes theories just don’t reflect the real world.
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Lisa, John, Doug, (and others similarly inclined),
As John says, it is frustrating when people so willfully ignore (or seem to ignore) facts. It is like Bush’s “Heck of a job” line, or Bush’s well-documented and lame response to Katrina. Some people just don’t get it. In my opinion it is futile and often counter-productive to argue with them, or even to engage them (though, admittedly, I have often attempted it). Engaging pernicious nonsense merely validates and encourages those ushering it.
I’ve heard it best articulated in two quotes, the former attributed to Mark Twain, the latter to “Unknown”:
Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.
When you’re arguing with a fool, make sure he isn’t doing the same thing.
There will always be a few animals you cannot persuade to leave a burning barn. At some point, you must abandon them, and do your best to extinguish the blaze. Those of us who can see what is happening must act now to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, to spread the word, to recruit new people to the effort, and to encourage and help each other in this endeavor. Leadership by example is always best. Arguing with the lost and unwilling is a useless drain on limited resources and morale. The naysayers will find themselves in the minority soon enough.
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Just a quick add – what is in the individual’s “best interest” may (a) only be selfishness (if you have children, you know this directly) and (b) may not be in society’s “best interest.” We are a society; there is a constant balancing act going on between “interests.” Someone may believe it is in her/his “best interest” to drive alone in a gas-guzzler to work because she/he can afford it or wants to . But that is not in our “best interest,” from many standpoints, including global warming.
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Mr. Hoffer,
I wasn’t actually trying to argue against minimum wage laws (although I would in another forum, perhaps); I just wanted to make the point that people can completely disagree with others and still not call them rude names, just like you and I have done on many occasions.
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Where is the proof that climate warming is more influenced or even significantly influenced by humans than by nature?
After every ice age the earth experiences global warming. What percent of today’s experience should I consider accepting as my burden of guilt?
Dennis Bowen
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Here’s a reading list – http://www.ucsusa.org/ssi/climate-change/scientific-consensus-on.html
This not a matter of “guilt;” and it is not a matter of accepting lower living standards or any of that other folderall that comes from the deniers. it’s a matter of recognizing the need to change certain patterns of behavior, doing some things differently, and being responsible stewards of what is, after all, a very small and vulnerable planet.
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I have my doubts that any reading list will change minds – minds that are already made up. I think the problem occurs when people adopt a political position, and thereafter accept or reject facts based on whether they comport with their worldview, like a religion. Climate change is a direct challenge to our runaway capitalist, consumerist, devil-take-the-hindmost culture, and since most people conflate capitalism with democracy, raising issues of climate change is seen as a profound threat to our democratic way of life. Threats this serious cause a lot of people to retreat into that deep denial which is so completely bewildering to us rationalists.
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Why can’t we talk about a carbon tax in public? Stop the government subsidizing and their trying to pick the winners out of the “green” energy sources. Let’s price carbon at a level that will accomplish the set goal of carbon reduction without giving away tax money,(tax credits, etc.) and giving corporations money,(free carbon quotas). We can then talk about what revenue source(s) the carbon taxes will replace. The Republicans can talk about the need for a VAT tax but if someone tries to have a conversation about a carbon tax politicians get hysterical.