Engaging the Climate Tragedy

Posted on by jembendell

When discussing the sorry state of efforts to address climate change with professionals working on this topic, across sectors, I often hear a reluctance to question whether it is too late to avert catastrophic climate change, or what such a view might mean for the focus of our work. Various objections to this view are raised and prevent open discussion or an evolution of work. Therefore, I decided to deliver a speech at a leading climate business and finance event in Australia, at Griffith University, to seek feedback on my argument that we must now shift focus.

In my keynote, Nov 29th, I’m outlining the following:

  1. There has been some progress on environmental issues in past decades, from reducing pollution, to habitat preservation, to waste management.
  2. Much valiant effort has been made to reduce carbon emissions over the last twenty years.
  3. There have been many steps forward on climate and carbon management, from awareness, to policies, to innovations.
  4. Larger and quicker steps must be taken and can be now that there is COP21 and major Chinese engagement on the issue.
  5. To support the maintenance and scaling of these efforts is essential.
  6. Small steps have been taken on adaptation to climate changes, such as flood defences and planning laws.
  7. Yet these steps on climate mitigation and adaptation are like walking up a landslide. If the landslide had not already begun, then quicker and bigger steps would get us to the top of where we want to be. But the latest climate data, emissions data and data on the spread of carbon-intensive lifestyles tell us that the landslide has already begun.

That the ground is already moving beneath our feet is summarised thus:

  1. The politically permissible scientific consensus is that we need to stay beneath 2 degrees warming of global ambient temperatures to avoid dangerous and uncontrollable levels of climate change, with impacts such as mass starvation, disease, flooding, storm destruction, migration and war
  2. If the world does not keep further anthropogenic emissions below a total of 1,300 billion tonnes of carbon, we won’t keep average temperatures below that 2 degrees warming.
  3. If we are not already on the path to dramatic reductions we will not keep within this limit.
  4. We are not on such a path, with emissions still at around 40 million tonnes of CO2 a year and the decoupling of growth from emissions minimal.
  5. The uncertainties on the edge of scientific consensus do not suggest a respite, with some increased carbon sequestration through increased vegetation not as significant as the methane emissions not factored into most models, and where Arctic warming is already progressing beyond even the most extreme predictions.
  6. Therefore, we are set for disruptive and uncontrollable levels of climate change, bringing starvation, destruction, migration, disease and war.
  7. The implication is that we need to expand our climate work into a deep adaptation agenda, including resilience, relinquishment and restoration while learning why this tragedy is occurring.

I will explain more about that deep adaptation agenda in a moment. I realise that at this point the reader, or listener, might feeling a bit affronted, disturbed, or saddened. In the past few years, many people have said to me that “it can’t be too late to stop climate change, because if it was, how would we find the energy to keep on striving for change?” With such views, a possible reality is denied to permit a continued striving which has its rationale, therefore, not in serving the expressed goal but in maintaining self-identities related to espoused values. This form of denial is different from outright climate denial, but is also unhelpful, as John Foster argues well in his book After Sustainability (2015).

It is emotionally difficult at first, but we need to move beyond that pretence if we are to remain relevant. In doing so, we open ourselves up to discuss a ‘deep adaptation’ agenda as well as exploring why this tragedy has begun and why we have been so poor at responding effectively. I will make some brief comments on these topics before concluding with some thoughts on how we evolve our research accordingly.

A deep adaptation agenda will involve increasing resilience, relinquishment and restoration Resilience involves people and communities better coping with disruptions. Examples include how river catchments can better cope with rains, or how buildings can better cope with floods. What I’m calling relinquishment, involves people and communities letting go of certain assets, behaviours and beliefs where retaining them could make matters worse. Examples include withdrawing from coastlines or giving up expectations for certain types of consumption. Restoration involves people and communities rediscovering attitudes and approaches to life and organisation that the hydrocarbon-fuelled civilisation eroded. Examples include re-wilding landscapes so they provide more ecological benefits and require less management, or increased community-level productivity and support.

There will be increasing discussion about what is to be learned from the tragedy of climate change, and honest inquiry existing alongside strategic attempts at framing disruption, degradation and loss to maintain one’s relative power in society.  Disruption, degradation and collapse will be framed by different people as a resulting from foreigners, capitalism, industrialism, individualism, consumerism, patriarchy, anthropomorphism, secularism, liberalism, progressivism, and atomism (where we see things as separate). We are even seeing framing of disruption by religious fundamentalists, who, to my knowledge, don’t discuss climate but seek to respond to the disruption it has already caused. One study by Columbia University argues that in Syria, the worst drought in 100s of years, made worse by climate change, led to 1.5 million people being displaced from their lives in rural areas and increased food prices in cities. Some radical Islamists were able to thrive in this situation with their explanations of cause and solution, replacement stories of personal identity and purpose, and offers of sustenance.

My own analysis is that the West’s response as restricted by the dominance of neoliberal economics since the 1970s. That led to hyper-individualist, market fundamentalist, incremental and atomistic approaches. By hyper-individualist, I mean a focus on individual action as consumers, switching light bulbs or buying sustainable furniture, rather than promoting political action as engaged citizens. By market fundamentalist, I mean a focus on market mechanisms like the complex, costly and largely useless carbon cap and trade systems, rather than exploring what more government intervention could achieve. By incremental, I mean a focus on celebrating small steps forward such as a company publishing a sustainability report, rather than strategies designed for a speed and scale of change suggested by the science. By atomistic, I mean a focus on seeing climate action as a separate issue from the governance of markets, finance and banking, rather than exploring what kind of economic system could permit or enable sustainability.

Given this context, while the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the culture they reflect are helpful for non-climate related matters, given the systemic nature of the impacts of global warming, they may be ill-focused. Instead “minimum survival goals” would be more appropriate, to reduce the rate of increase in starvation, destruction, migration, disease and war. We don’t need consensus on that, but a shift right now from those who have a professional income, skill set and network to work on matters broadly related to climate change and its effects.

The implications for researchers working on climate issues, whether on campaigning, policy, business, finance, include asking the following questions:

On other’s research:

“How might these findings inform efforts for a more massive & urgent transformation to resilience & relinquishment in face of collapse?”

On one’s own research:

“If I didn’t believe in incremental incorporation of climate concerns into current organisations and systems, what might I want to know more about?”

“How might neglected theories of political economy suggest I inquire into this or related topics?”

To explore some of these ideas further, my recent writings may be of interest, on implications for the future of the climate debate, on what sustainability leadership involves, on how we need to heal capitalism, and how we need to ask ourselves tough questions if we consider ourselves climate activists. Better still, these publications will help you explore this emerging “post-sustainability” paradigm:

Benson, M. and Craig, R. (2014) ‘The End of Sustainability’, Society and Natural Resources 27; 777-782

Foster, J. (2015) After Sustainability (Abingdon: Earthscan from Routledge)

Hamilton, C. (2010) Requiem for a Species (London: Earthscan)

Hamilton, C. et al. (eds.) (2015) The Anthropocene and the Global Environmental Crisis (Abingdon: Routledge)

Jamieson, D. (2014)  Reason in a Dark Time (Oxford: Oxford University Press)

Mulgan, T. (2011) Ethics for a Broken World  (Durham: Acumen)

As the point of no return can’t be fully known until after the event, ambitious work on reducing carbon must increase. But a new front of work on deep adaptation is as important today. Understandable emotional traumas from realising the tragedy that is coming, and in many ways upon us already, shouldn’t prevent us from exploring what this probable reality could mean for our choices now. Moreover, from social psychology, there is some evidence to suggest that by focusing on impacts now, it makes climate change more proximate, which increases support for mitigation.

In my talk at Griffith I explore more about the nature and future of leadership in light of this assessment of the climate tragedy.

More on the event is here.

UPDATE: Until June 1st 2018 I am receiving PhD applications on the topic of deep adaptation, connected to either organisational studies, policy or sociological disciplines, for starting Oct 1st 2018. Either based in Cumbria or remote working, full time or part time. There are no scholarships for these. Fees information from http://www.cumbria.ac.uk If you have a masters degree and are interested in this topic and self fund, then please drop me a note.

9 thoughts on “Engaging the Climate Tragedy”

  1. Jem:

    “…exploring why this tragedy has begun and why we have been so poor at responding effectively.”

    Short answer: the greed underpinning unfettered capitalism for the last 400 years.

    BTW, I’ve noted there is an apparent fundamental confusion throughout all levels of the climate discourse: most talk about ‘climate change’ while only few talk about the underlying cause, ‘global warming’. The former is, basically, beyond humanity’s power to directly change; the latter, as we now know, has occurred as a result of humanity’s excesses over the last four centuries and, crucially, is the driver for the increasing changes in climate around the globe. Only to that extent, can humanity cause climate to change. Obviously, then, if humanity works to reduce global warming, the destructive effects of climate change will gradually decline. Trouble is, that could – and probably will – take a few hundred years. Or even longer….

    Hence, my point is this: put aside the fruitless talk about ‘climate change’ per se (and thereby, perhaps, sideline most of the deniers/skeptics) and, instead, concentrate upon what we can in fact change: the inescapable warming trends which have been generated by the continual use of fossil fuels and unbridled consumerism.

    P.S. Can’t make the upcoming Brisbane event, Jem, Another time. Thx.

    1. Thx. You are right. Global CO2 emissions are 41 billion tons a year.. according to 2017 figures. That amounts to 11 billion a year of carbon. Looking more closely at the IPPC advise to governments on its carbon budget calculations, they said in 2013 that if the world does not keep further anthropogenic emissions below a total of 800 billion tonnes of carbon we are not likely to keep average temperatures below 2 degrees of global averaged warming. That left about 270 billion tonnes of carbon to burn (Pidcock, 2013). Total global emissions remain at around 11 billion tonnes of carbon year (which is 37 billion tonnes of CO2). Those calculations appear worrying but give the impression we have at least a decade to change. It takes significant time to change economic systems and so if we are not already on the path to dramatic reductions it is unlikely we will keep within the carbon limit. With an increase of carbon emissions of 2% in 2017, the decoupling of economic activity from emissions is not yet making a net dent in global emissions (Canadell et al, 2017). So we are not on the path to prevent going over 2 degrees warming through emissions reductions. In any case the IPCC estimate of a carbon budget was controversial with many scientist who estimated that existing CO2 in the atmosphere should already produce global ambient temperature rises over 5°C and so there is no carbon budget – it has already been overspent (Wasdell, 2015).

  5. Roger Bu

    Re: “BTW, I’ve noted there is an apparent fundamental confusion throughout all levels of the climate discourse: most talk about ‘climate change’ while only few talk about the underlying cause, ‘global warming’. The former is, basically, beyond humanity’s power to directly change; the latter, as we now know, has occurred as a result of humanity’s excesses over the last four centuries and, crucially, is the driver for the increasing changes in climate around the globe. Only to that extent, can humanity cause climate to change. Obviously, then, if humanity works to reduce global warming, the destructive effects of climate change will gradually decline. Trouble is, that could – and probably will – take a few hundred years. Or even longer….”

    Firstly, the term “global warming” was replaced with “climate change” because the latter is more accurate. For example, melting of the Arctic could, theoretically, halt the Gulf Stream, which in turn could cause Europe’s climate to become significantly colder. “Global warming” is too simplistic. The statement “global warming is the underlying cause of climate change” is also over-simplistic. There are many underlying causes of climate change, but the most important at the moment are emissions of greenhouse gases by industrialised human civilisation. That is, the underlying cause is explosive human population growth and the industrial activity required to support (unsustainably) that huge population. But the real problem with the above statement is this bit:

    “Only to that extent, can humanity cause climate to change. Obviously, then, if humanity works to reduce global warming, the destructive effects of climate change will gradually decline. ”

    If only this were true. Unfortunately, it isn’t. Anthropogenic emissions have so far been responsible for most of the warming, but it is increasingly the case that further emissions and other causes of warming are the result of feedback effects. Melting sea ice increases the amount of solar energy absorbed by the sea, causing more melting. Higher atmospheric temperatures lead to more water vapour, which acts as a greenhouse gas itself. Rising temperatures are causing melting of permafrost and sub-oceanic clathrates, releasing methane, which is a very potent greenhouse gas. It is highly likely that the effects of these feedback mechanisms on the climate will eventually dwarf anything that humans have done directly, and therefore it is possible that even if humanity actually works far harder than we can realistically expect it too, it might make NO DIFFERENCE AT ALL to “the destructive effects of climate change.” It is highly likely that what we’ve already done is the climatic equivalent of triggering an avalanche, and nothing we can do now will stop it or making much difference to the final outcome, which will be a new equilibrium that the climate finds on its own.

    So the problem is even worse – much worse – than you seem to think it is. We might just as well forget about trying to stop climate change. Instead, we need to start planning, realistically, for how we are going to respond to it.

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