Lots of strings to the conversation, but here are my views on some of them:

The “north” does commonly misunderstand the problems of the “south” – so few people in northern societies have any meaningful experience with developing countries – but wait! I have a problem with describing a country like Canada as “developed.” Begs the entire question of what we have developed into: which is the country that has changed in 300 years from one of the most resource-wise (had to be to survive), to one with with the greatest per capita use of resources, and the greatest dependence on primary resource industries…

Still: people in the richer countries do not have meaningful experience with people in poorer countries, or understanding of what it is like to live elsewhere, what the real issues of concern and survival are, how to actually engage in the world without having a deleterious impact on the others.

It is this world view that prevents us from dealing with large, global issues in ways that are effective.

Constricted world view, or frame of reference, is also a symptom of people engaged in “traditional” political action/debate/advocacy. Thus the ads for more nuclear power supported by a union of electrical workers, the support for clear cut logging by the forestry unions, and etc, etc. Thus the knee-jerk reaction against anything promoted by environmentalists from conservatives; the knee-jerk reaction of the environmental left against any solution proposed by any business interest and etc. But how human, and how hard to argue against.

It is so difficult for people to fight for justice of any kind, to face a long struggle, to win some, lose lots, sacrifice so much, and then to be faced with the reality that here, in a new set of difficulties and issues, are impacts potentially so huge as to make all that was worked for before, all that was said, and written, and argued about over empty bottles late into the night – suddenly irrelevant. Dwarfed by the ice shelf falling into the sea, the disappearing lake, the new desert, the crop failure…

And how intrinsically human to deny that something might happen, something big, after so long thinking that a) everything is fine, or b) everything is shit, but if we just do THIS, then everything will be fine. Either way, we delude ourselves as a way of simply surviving.

The key problem, for me, is to sift through the junk – the junk science, junk politics, junk lobby – to find actual information that will guide me in the future. Thanks for getting me along the way.

And cheers to everyone – from everywhere – for posting. The blogsphere is alive and well!

In politics you need evidence that somebody has actually done something so you can argue that they stop or change what they are doing.

In terms of rain-forest destruction or oil companies the arguments have always been there in the left. i.e. Stop the destruction and the polluting.

In terms of climate change, what is the suggested course of action?

This brings me to my second point. Guilt politics. It is far easier to change the purchasing habits of other lefties and people in general in the ‘developed world’ than it is to change the entire politics of capitalism. It is easier to put the guilt on car drivers and workers (like the recent ‘study’ that blamed swedish men for global warming because they do more driving). It is so fundamentally god-damn hard to get rid of capitalism, let alone agree on what system might replace it.

Hence, people want to believe in a coming disaster that they can avert through their shopping (for local produce and efficient light bulbs) and by turning off their lights (easy to do) and using eco-flush toilets. Much harder to believe that the world’s problems might be structural in that people can’t afford to go shopping, don’t have electricity, or water or toilets at all in much of the world.

The psychology of what is going on in the global warming debate on the left at the moment is indeed fascinating.

PS – My solution. We should spend our research budgets on sustainable energy sources not another round of nuclear power. And we should work hard to avoid the really big impending disaster – biofuels plantations. Hysteria makes both these objectives the harder to achieve.

Perhaps some explanation of why I (who would consider myself on the left of sorts) have a problem with climate hysteria might be:

I am a sceptic by nature
I have scientific training
I am suspicious of people who claim to speak for everyone (the consensus argument)
I am suspicious of people who exagerate
I can see a difference of tone between those who are sceptical and those website like realclimate.org

This scepticism causes me to look for evidence. All I read are riders and cautions that are ignored in the reporting. Followed by rampant exageration.

A case in point:

I read today in the Guardian that there may be ’3000 extra deaths due to global warming’ in the coming years. This is based on some statistical likelihood of a repeat of the canicule of 2003. No mention of the huge (really huge) increase in death rate that occurs in Britain each year over the winter months due to the cold. No explanation of how this likelihood is increased hardly at all by any climate model prediction of a fraction of a degree change in average temperature. In fact, pure nonsense by people on high wages who need to justify their jobs and who need to appear to be prepared for coming catastrophy.

The climate scaremongers have obscured any real human-induced climate change with their wild predictions.

Hope that can explain something of why many people are sceptical despite the fact that they are told daily that they have a mental problem or don’t exist at all.

http://www.globalizate.org/marshall050208.html

Thank you George!!

I do not beleive them above doubt. Actualy, I beleive Chaves is a dictator who couldn’t care less about environment than any dictator. Chaves, Ortega, Castro and Morales are all deepening their nations in poverty and underdevelopment.

Che Guevarra was an idiot whose legacy is a course on guerrilla warfare, that got killed when it was to prove its practical value. The result of his fight in the Cuban revolution is that even today, the only cubans that live in freedom and prosperity are those who vote for republicans in Miami.
The more you go to the left, the less they care about environment. China is the World’s most poluted country and it is ruled by the Communist Party. USSR provided some of the most devastating polution stories and its succesor, Russia, lives right up to the legacy of the soviets.

So, give me a break with progressive left and its heros (read mass murderers and dictators).

Issues such as erosion, bad water quality, dangerous chemicals in industry and agriculture, urban mis-growth, rural displacement, no recycling, overpackaging (imports) and so on, are THE ecological issues in developing countries.

Sorry if we havent caught up to your priorities, but you’ll have to wait until we manage to marshall all the resources necessary to tackle our environmental problems (better categorised under economic and social problems).

In a word or two: Your priority list and solutions to environmental degradation are not necessarily ours.

A union will stoutly defend indefensible industries if its members jobs are involved.

during the Climate Camp last summer we saw the airline pilots union BALPA telling the most outrageous lies about aviation’s climate impact.

In doing so, they bolster their members’ dependence on climate wrecking industries; instead, their members’ interests would be better served by moving for a ‘just transition’, retraining into something with a long-term and low-impact future. (I wrote a piece about that here.

The aviation industry lobby group Flying Matters – another opponent of the climate Camp in media debates – is not only comprised of the airlines, plane makers, CBI and travel agents, but also the GMB, T&G and Amicus.

For as long as present day jobs for local trade union members are the top priority, the Left will struggle to address climate change – or any other global issue – with the seriousness it deserves.

I say this in the spirit of responding constructively. My previous comment had instead exaggerated the extent to which you’re approaching these issues through global warming concerns.

Your observations about the progressive left in general (as opposed to people in or associated with Latin America per se) ring true with me. (As for anti-neoliberalism in and around Latin America, I’m not going to try to comment on that.) In my experience there usually are sharp divisions between lefties and greens (though there are a minority of us who straddle that divide; hence, we end up on each side of the chasm — the camp with the majority of greens in it or the camp with the majority of lefties in it — at one time or another).

You observations on “what explains the absence of climate change on the agenda” are a helpful start. Some additional thoughts –

Narrow-mindedness is rampant in the world today. People get caught up in various areas and shut everything else out. I experience this in the context of academic fields (e.g. Media and Communications, which some see as all that matters, whereas others are caught up in matters of state or what-have-you), but narrow-mindedness is a much broader condition of contemporary life. This happens because societies have been made so complicated (e.g. internationalized), and because there’s so little quality analysis that people pay attention to. Thought and discourse (e.g. journalism) is very shallow.

Greens also often fail to engage the lefties (to oversimplify this with labels, and by making generalizations that actually are references to tendencies). Take this blog for instance. While it’s great (which is why it’s one of only four sites that I have on my blogroll (http://tobanblack.net/blog/) right now), Climate Change Denial has a narrow green mandate which isn’t going to build bridges to the lefties, among others. And doesn’t your piece take a similar perspective? You suggest that the lefties should get acquainted with green issues (to oversimplify again), but not vice versa. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate your piece though. Besides, environmental-issues-are-all-that-matters perspectives are a systemic problem, not a matter of any one piece or blog.

In solidarity,
Toban