Whitey's on the Comet

George Bush is trying hard to deny that humans cause global warming. He's right of course, humans don't cause global warming. Capitalism does. Maybe George wouldn't agree with me there. You'll have guessed I don't buy the old Green Party (Heideggerian?) line that 'industrialism' is the culprit - theirs was a catch-all concept that elided East and West, seeing a common technology but not a common profit motive. In fact 'industry' is a perfect example of what Aristotle meant by 'teleology'. One can't understand it in isolation from the end towards which it strives. Industry doesn't degrade the environment because it is 'industrial' but because in factories natural and human resources can be exploited for profit. Whether these profits are going to a capitalist (West) or to a State-run-as-sole-capitalist (East) is not the issue. At least with the collapse of the charade of socialism in the East we less often see this term 'industrialism' being bandied about as the root of all ills. Which is why Bush's solution to global warming - 'better technology' -  seems so anachronistic. It is merely the flipside of the Green argument. Both ignore the end which technology and industry serve.

Is global warming good or bad? Who can say, if 'good' and 'bad' are just 'aesthetic choices' (as our logical-positivist troll argues).

And I realise I may be a bit behind the times with my anti-ID cards campaigning. As the police actions at the anti-G8 protest show, our identities (or lack thereof) have already been appropriated.

Comments

[Scott Burgess]

"George Bush is trying hard to deny that humans cause global warming."

In the very column you link to, Bush specifically acknowledges a human component to warming:

"In an interview for ITV1's Tonight With Trevor McDonald, recorded last week and to be screened this evening, Mr Bush accepted that climate change is "a significant, long-term issue that we've got to deal with" and is man-made "to a certain extent"."

Also from today's Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/g8/story/0,13365,1521053,00.html):

"US President George Bush is now ready to concede that climate change has scientific basis, and that collective action is required over global warming."

[YH]

That there is a 'human component' is not the same as admitting that humans are the cause of global warming. Bush seems to subscribe to Althusser's notion of over-determination: 'many causes'. One wonders what the other components are: terrorists? liberals? Even last week this vague 'human component' was not something Bush was willing to have inserted into the G8 communique (and come Friday I bet you it is even more watered down than the press is suggesting today - 'collective action is needed to avert it' is a phrase tailor-made to entail no specific commitment). It has taken some hard bargaining amongst foreign ministers and diplomats to get his team to agree to even this wording, a wording that has been uncontroversial to most of the world for several years. To say that Bush is dragging his heels on even this tiny concession to the vox populi would be the understatement of the decade.

[Adam Kotsko]

The idea of "averting" global warming presupposes that it is not already taking place.

I do agree that merely having "better technology" is not a solution -- as if the supposedly autonomous progress of technology would automatically solve our problems without any political intervention -- but it does seem as though we've gotten ourselves into a position where complex technologies will be necessary to halt and hopefully begin to reverse the wholesale destruction of the earth. That is what bothers me about a lot of ecological thought -- it just seems to me that now, even if they shut down everything and every human being was suddenly "raptured," the environment would continue to deteriorate anyway. Just human beings as such are not the problem, just like technology as such is not the problem.

Capitalism is the problem, damn it!

[YH]

Agreed Adam, and I think you're right to point out the dangers of ecological piety. There was a book many years ago by Rudolf Bahro called 'From Red to Green' to which a friend and I wrote a response, 'From Red to Green and Back Again', trying to argue that Greens were without a politics that might possibly halt environmental destruction.

On technology, I think you're right that we might need some pretty damn quick fixes in the next decade, otherwise some of the present trends will go into feedback loop (another loop revealed this week - the oceans are becoming more acidic, killing carbon-absorbing sea plantlife). Thus even Blair is talking up the (untried and untested) idea of storing CO2 underground in the space left by pumping out the planet's oil (science fiction anyone?)

But I think when Bush mentions 'better technology' he is thinking along the lines of Esso's current moves into R&D on renewables - they have to be profitable, and if they are, then they could be the long-term solution to the problem. This is where I think he's dangerous, and where the proposed solution may only add to the problem. If you only think of profitability (even in your technological fixes) you're not addressing the root cause.

But then I wouldn't expect serious thinking from George.

[Scott Burgess]

" One wonders what the other components are: terrorists? liberals?"

It's quite possible that there are other simultaneous causes, specifically natural fluctuations, of a type similar to several seen over the geological/historical record, and which are easily documented.

See:

http://www.agu.org/revgeophys/mayews01/node5.html

"the (untried and untested) idea of storing CO2 underground in the space left by pumping out the planet's oil (science fiction anyone?)

Er ... wrong and uninformed. It's neither untried, untested, nor science fiction:

"Norway's Statoil company, for instance, has buried carbon dioxide (CO2) under the North Sea since 1996."

See:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4089538.stm

Sorry, but you appear to be a typically clueless ideologue.

" you're not addressing the root cause"

Er, the 'root cause' is CO2 emission, right? If there's a "long-term solution" (to use your phrase) that doesn't emit CO2, then it is, as you put it, a long term solution.

Unless, of course, your real objection is not to environmental degradation at all, but one based on stymieing industrial/technological development as a whole, and reverting the entire population to a hunter/gatherer society.

Except for yourselves, needless to say.

[YH]

It's funny how quickly commenters descend to the ad hominem. I'll try to keep this a rational debate and withold the name-calling. If global warming is due to natural cycles that will readjust themselves back to normal then I'd be happy to read your evidence for it. I stand corrected on my second point, and I'm glad to hear that one country (with relatively low CO2 emissions) has tried burying CO2 underground. I look forward to the US following suit, and to seeing that there are no long term dangers to such a practice. The root cause I was referring to was capitalism. Getting rid of the profit motive doesn't mean we are reduced to a hunter gatherer society. I don't see how your conclusion follows from my premise. And finally I'm all in favour of technological development, as long as it creates better ploughares not better swords.

[rogergathman]

I think William McNeil's Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the
Twentieth-Century World is a better place to start understanding climate change than Heidegger. Although it is not McNeil's point, I think the evidence from that book shows that capitalism and socialism both shed costs onto third parties -- which is what pollution is. A social cost. The great state sponsored projects -- whether Hoover Dam or the half finished Soviet plan to assassinate the Aral Sea (the oddest target ever purged in the Stalinist system) are both squarely in that tradition -- which explains the convergence between the development paths of seemingly disparate economies, like the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. The opposition to environmentalism that connects the current G.O.P. to the Soviet command and control planners has a similar form -- the third parties that bear the costs are scattered, or poor, or in some ways marked as disposable. K. William Kapp, who devised the theory of social costs independently from the externalities theory of the Chicago school, thought that the generation of it was entirely a capitalist phenomenon, but in hindsight it is easy to see that the party in a command and control economy functions in the same way as the ownership or rentier class in the advanced capitalist system. In the end, what took down the soviet system, the last straw, was Chernobyl. Who knows, environmental/technological disaster might do the same thing to the American system, especially as it reproduces itself via a more and more moronic, short time horizon governing class.

Kapp, by the way, was supported by a scholarship from the Frankfurt school, which helped him escape Nazi germany. A writer well worth rediscovering, if you haven't heard of him.

[YH]

Roger, that's interesting. I'm not sure if I totally get your drift, but I think the one thing I'd be cautious about is the contrast you make between America and the Soviet Union as a contrast between capitalism / socialism, because, to put it bluntly, the Soviet Union wasn't socialist, and certainly wasn't communist (over the last few hours the troll has been making tiresome links between Marx and the gulag which are schoolboy doxa; I deleted him because it's tiresome and I really think he'd find more of an audience at Harry's Place or Samizdata, not because I have any sympathies in the least for J. Stalin). The Aral Sea disaster is indeed criminal, but I would never posit a causal link between it and a planned economy (though I'd need to flesh this out - suffice to say you can't plan an economy the size of the Russia - you would have needed radical decentralisation for planning to have been beneficial).

And Heidegger was thrown in there merely as food for thought - there are shades of Heidegger's diagnosis of Techne in post-war environmentalism. But I wouldn't go to Heidegger for insights on social costs, etc.

Hope this hasn't misconstrued your point.

[Scott Burgess]

" In the end, what took down the soviet system, the last straw, was Chernobyl."

Support, please?

Others might contend that the Soviet system was brought down by the increasingly unsustainable cost (for them) of the cold war, therefore a validation of US MAD policy.

But you've made an absolutely certain statement, so the burden of proof is on you.

So go ahead - prove it.

[Scott Burgess]

" 'collective action is needed to avert it' is a phrase tailor-made to entail no specific commitment"

Erm, yes ... but that's not the phrase that the Guardian column used. As they put it, Bush's contention is that:

" collective action is required over global warming"

Is that not exactly what you guys think? Do you disagree that "collective action is required over global warming"?

"The idea of "averting" global warming presupposes that it is not already taking place."

In fact, Bush specifically said that it is now happening:

"Mr Bush accepted that climate change is "a significant, long-term issue that we've got to deal with"

So we see here yet another distortion, and yet another simplistic misrepresentation of the President's position. Hardly a surprise, I suppose.

[YH]

Collective action is indeed needed, and that's just why Bush needs to sign up to Kyoto at the very least.

And what do you think Scott? Don't you agree?

[Scott]

"Collective action is indeed needed"

So you agree with Bush, then, and no doubt credit him for today's statements.

"Bush needs to sign up to Kyoto at the very least"

I disagree, since Kyoto explicitly excludes China and India, countries expected by many to be the greatest emitters in a rather few decades time. That is the specific reason for the Senate's refusal to ratify.

Of course, as is little known among the less informed, Presidents can't go around approving treaties willy-nilly - that's up to the Senate, who voted unanimously (during the Clinton administration, BTW) not to approve a treaty that excluded nations like the above mentioned.

Given that global warming is the greatest crisis in the history of "The Planet," as we so frequently read, don't you think that China and India should be included? Because, if they were, the Senate's, and the President's, objections would be much more difficult to justify.

That's unlikely to happen, however, as the real motivation for Kyoto advocates has little to do with CO2 (otherwise they'd want emissions reduced by all, including the increasingly and heavily polluting, but exempt, countries just mentioned), but are rather more concerned with building a barrier to a perceived US hegemony.

[Cian]

The problem with carbon sequestration is that nobody knows if the carbon will stay there, nor how much carbon we can sequester. Nor is it sufficient in itself. It may be a transition technology. The problem with Scott is that he's an idiot who mysteriously thinks himself qualified to analyse scientific research.

I think its simplistic to say that the problem is capitialism. Environmental degredation predates capitalism, and happened to a wide variety of societies. The problem is partly one of one's approach to externalities, and partly an unsustainable way of thinking. Capitalism has a tendency to make these things worse, but I think it is naive to equate environmental problems with capitalism.

What is needed is a more holistic approach, which takes into account waste, efficiency and need. Not just at an engineering level, but at an ideological level. Currently we live in societies that believe (like children) that we have an infinite quantity of inputs - be it energy, or natural resources. This has to change, otherwise our only hope as a species is migration to other planets, or reverting to hunter gatherer societies.

[rogergathman]

Scott,

Somehow, you've read a fairly standard claim about a tipping point in the fall of the Soviet Union as a claim that Chernobyl caused the fall of the Soviet Union. Causal claims about matters with several interlinked causes can only argue for weighting various of those causes. Thus, that Chernobyl was the last straw doesn't exclude or include your list of causes. I'd say that your set doesn't really explain why the Soviets didn't just adjust to American military superiority. The Chinese Communist Party could successfully retain power without trying to maintain superiority on the American level.

To understand why the Chinese alternative wasn't followed, you have to look for underlying structural factors. There are some that are unconnected to Chernobyl -- that the autarkic soviet model never developed any endogenous financial institutions (and thus became parasitic on Western capital markets) is unconnected, for example But what Chernobyl revealed in part was just the underlying rot. The command and control structure was not only failing to deliver goods, but the automatic response of the party (hiding the event, endangering up to 1 million people with the fallout, paralysis as to the solution) pointed to its fundamental decay. The Soviet system was like the Bush cabinet: no matter how you screwed up, you could never be fired. The only fire-able offense (in another parallel with the Bushies) was telling the truth. Ellen Moynagh, in a nice review of the place of the accident in Soviet history in 1994, wrote:

"On December 8, 1991, the leaders of Russia, the Ukraine, and Byelorussia declared the Soviet Union dissolved and established a loose confederation called the Commonwealth of Independent States. The Soviet Union's demise followed quickly on the heels of the failed coup by communists in August of 1991, but many people believe that its roots can be traced to the public reaction to the Chernobyl accident and its aftermath, and to concern over environmental issues in general. In the words of Roman Solchanyk, "[i]n short, for Ukranians, Chernobyl became identified with the duplicity and failure, indeed the complete bankruptcy of the Soviet system as a whole. It also served to mobilize large masses of people against that system." Therefore, although Soviet citizens had long tolerated their lack of significant influence over political matters in general and environmental issues in particular, and although some progress had been made in the early Gorbachev years, the Chernobyl disaster provided the catalyst that brought not only the "Green Movement" to the forefront but also people's desire for a say in how their country was run."

[rogergathman]

Scott,

Somehow, you've read a fairly standard claim about a tipping point in the fall of the Soviet Union as a claim that Chernobyl caused the fall of the Soviet Union. Causal claims about matters with several interlinked causes can only argue for weighting various of those causes. Thus, that Chernobyl was the last straw doesn't exclude or include your list of causes. I'd say that your set doesn't really explain why the Soviets didn't just adjust to American military superiority. The Chinese Communist Party could successfully retain power without trying to maintain superiority on the American level.

To understand why the Chinese alternative wasn't followed, you have to look for underlying structural factors. There are some that are unconnected to Chernobyl -- that the autarkic soviet model never developed any endogenous financial institutions (and thus became parasitic on Western capital markets) is unconnected, for example But what Chernobyl revealed in part was just the underlying rot. The command and control structure was not only failing to deliver goods, but the automatic response of the party (hiding the event, endangering up to 1 million people with the fallout, paralysis as to the solution) pointed to its fundamental decay. The Soviet system was like the Bush cabinet: no matter how you screwed up, you could never be fired. The only fire-able offense (in another parallel with the Bushies) was telling the truth. Ellen Moynagh, in a nice review of the place of the accident in Soviet history in 1994, wrote:

"On December 8, 1991, the leaders of Russia, the Ukraine, and Byelorussia declared the Soviet Union dissolved and established a loose confederation called the Commonwealth of Independent States. The Soviet Union's demise followed quickly on the heels of the failed coup by communists in August of 1991, but many people believe that its roots can be traced to the public reaction to the Chernobyl accident and its aftermath, and to concern over environmental issues in general. In the words of Roman Solchanyk, "[i]n short, for Ukranians, Chernobyl became identified with the duplicity and failure, indeed the complete bankruptcy of the Soviet system as a whole. It also served to mobilize large masses of people against that system." Therefore, although Soviet citizens had long tolerated their lack of significant influence over political matters in general and environmental issues in particular, and although some progress had been made in the early Gorbachev years, the Chernobyl disaster provided the catalyst that brought not only the "Green Movement" to the forefront but also people's desire for a say in how their country was run."

[rogergathman]

Oops. Sorry for the double posting.

[A Disgruntled Postal Worker]

Roger:

It's OK. Some people need to be smacked twice.