Given that the world is, on the whole, not anywhere near necessary targets, according to the latest UN NDC Synthesis Reports issued February 2021; then if “the left” are being overblown, they are not having much influence.
This is as you would expect. Most people in the developed world, don’t want to change their lifestyles – and given that most people in that world seem to be going downhill due to neoliberal privileging of business, transfer of wealth upwards, and nannying of the wealthy, why would they want to risk going even further backwards because of attempts to fix global warming? This is the usual reason given for working class anger in the US, and for ‘populism’ (assuming that word means anything). Furthermore lots of powerful people do not want to lose the wealth they have tied up in fossil fuels, and they don’t want to risk the possibility that new forms of energy could increase democracy or impoverish fossil fuel companies.
These wealthy and powerful people can buy politicians, can buy media, and can buy the idea that climate change, global warming, massive forest fires, massive flooding, ecological destruction, over-fishing, destruction of agricultural lands, deforestation, loss of animal life etc are not really a problem, or they occur all the time, and that imagined technological invention can save us, without any political or economic change. This seems well documented to me.
They have captured mainstream parties all over the world, with the possible exception of UK conservatives, who actually seem to be trying to reduce emissions – not that this gets reported much outside the UK (remember wealthy people own the media, or advertise in it). UK conservatives, do tend to have a real conservative streak because they believe in conserving things (which is pretty unusual in the Right nowadays), and they don’t always believe in encouraging business to destroy their country….
In the developing world many countries, believe that fossil fuels and ecological destruction are necessary for development, and that it is their turn to engage in destruction for the benefit of their people, and that developed world objections to this are a form of neo-colonial racism. They say something like “get your own world in order before complaining about us.” So, on the whole, many relatively powerful people in the developing world downplay the problems as well.
Again the point is, that if the left is overblowing global warming they are not having much of an impact, and one of the leading forces for emissions reduction is not remotely left wing.
The next implied question is “are the left exaggerating the dangers?” Personally I think it is unlikely that the majority are. Some will be of course, this is what happens. Most scientists and people who study the subject, seem to think that bad things, to very bad things, could happen. Strings of high ’unprecedented’ temperatures in the Antarctic are clearly not good. World wide highly intense and ’unprecedented’ forest fires are not good. Declines in fish population are not good. The apparent death of large expanses of coral reefs is not good. Places having streams of days over 40 degrees centigrade are not good. Strings of destructive storms are not good. And this is with only 1 degree increase. What we will have with another couple of degrees will probably be really bad.
One issue here is that because ecologies and climate are complex systems we cannot predict how bad things will get. We do know, that once you knock the systems out of their balance and equilibrium, they tend to oscillate wildly, which probably means increasing wild weather, but precisely what this will mean, we can’t tell until it happens. However, the chances of good things happening for most people seem remote. I guess, if you are wealthy enough, you can move to and buy somewhere safe and remote and perhaps you can buy the people to provide you with food etc….
I don’t think it is altogether sensible to wait to see what happens before acting, because there almost certainly will be a delay. If we act now, then things will continue to get worse for a number of years. The later we act then the greater the probability that the situation will get worse for longer after we stop. So we have to stop before it gets unendurable.
I personally think the idea that action on global warming or ecological destruction is not particularly left wing at all. Real conservatives should be concerned. Even if you think that global warming has nothing to do with humans, then you might want to think about how we should prepare to adapt to changing circumstances, and how we should lessen the effects. Climate and ecological action is about dealing with, and lessening, anticipated problems, which is pretty normal across the political spectrum.
After all, ordinary people do want forests, do not want to breath coal and oil pollution, don’t want a coal mine next to their house, don’t want flooding, don’t want the price of food to go up and face food shortages, don’t want climate refugees, don’t want (if they live in hot countries) to work outside in 38 degree centigrade (100 degrees F) or more temperatures and so on. However, the wealthy elites have successfully managed to label action on these issues as ‘left wing’, probably in an attempt to make those people who identify as conservative, right wing, or libertarian shy away from action, and not think about what would be a good solution. This helps those sponsoring people maintain their power.
Climate change and eco-destruction is real and does seem to be humanly generated, (which is absolutely obvious in terms of eco-destruction). If we do discuss what to do then the arguments about what we should do, are likely to be political – and this is good.
Personally I would rather have people on the right thinking about solutions, than attempting to sabotage solutions, or attempting to prop up a failed regime, and UK Conservatives show that this is possible…
Tags: climate change, Disinformation, neoliberalism, politics
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