DUCKPOND

I made the following comments on John Quiggin’s blog, and nobody challenged the major propositions I put forward, which I hoped would happen, but I thought I should keep a record here in the event I change my mind.

Nonetheless, the challenge for me is to think more critically about the propositions that I have made. In summary:

1. Global climate change requires deep cultural change.
   It is not just a matter of changing behavior in terms of external reinforcements of carrots and sticks, financial incentives, legal imperatives and so forth, but the challenge requires a new relationship with our atmosphere, and by extension a re-reinterpretation of humaness and nature.
   I would argue that such a proposition is based on evidence and reason, and has the support of the provisional strength of science. We know that we have to stop greenhouse gas emissions, and we have to develop means of drawing carbon dioxide and any other long life pollutants from the atmosphere. ( I realize that I am not offering supporting evidence here at this point, rather what I suspect is likely. Whatever else, this not thinking.)
2. Doing nothing makes the situation drastically worse.
   As John Guiggin observes the easy options and the more painless options are exhausted the longer we leave effective  action.  Globally, the United States must be a major and leading player. We will reach a point, if we do not act, when we will find that we are confronted with an emergency in which multiple factors take effect. It is truly shocking to realize, for example, the the Central Asian Plateau and Himilayan glaciers are shrinking by 7% (I have no idea how that can be measured, exactly how glaciers on one hand impact on major river flows (other than the obvious) and on the other how it influences rainfall). What I do know is that in a emergency there will be an inevitable tendency toward centralization and top-down command control, which will probably override democratic protocols. So state and non-state violence may become more widespread.
3. Peace and nonviolence have never been more important.

Here is what I said on John Guiggin’s blog:

I am interested in the question of cultural change in the belief that is necessary for global survival faced with climate change. I will be careful to acknowledge that I do not fully understand this issue.The fundamental question, it seems to me, goes to the issue of how we got into this situation in the first place. Not knowing, for example, about the CFC’s is one reason we put them into the atmosphere, but we need to know that we have to remove greenhouse gases, rather than simply stop emitting them. As John points out, I can get that story clearly from Tim Flannery via You Tube and Democracy Now, but not from The Australian.At another level there is the fundamental interrelationships suggested by the creation story that posits a separation between humanness and nature. We accept one set of knowledge and stories, and that has social, political and institutional implications.Power does not come from the barrel of gun. The role of the media, has been to control the dominant story on a number of levels. They assume the role of centralized, multi-level gate keepers. The appointment of Governor Palin, as the vice presidential nominee is an interesting case study. Read what Mudflats has to say, or any of the other blog writers, often as expert or more authoritative than any media commentary, and whatever else is true no editor, or set of editors, framed what is said.The other factor it seems to me is both the speed and reach of information. The printing press might have arrived in Western Europe in 1465, but it took 500 years for universal education to be established, and on that foundation the internet speeds like a bushfire.

We are best informed by conversation, and it is the educative role that blogs can be players. Conversation and disagreement is fundamental and necessary to the democratic process. The function of gatekeeping is to control the conversation and exclude other voices.The case study approach allows us to observe the relative performance of the MSM with respect to its upstart competitors, that is, those voices that otherwise would never be heard, or if heard, whose time would be controlled.

The real issues are raised by the apparent absence of background checking, and the placement of people, as has apparently occurred with respect to supreme court nominees. Mudflats suggests that Governor Palin supported the bridge to nowhere. On balance I would support her on that, rather than have the money wasted in Iraq. Perhaps the issue there, is not so much the allocation of money, but the responsibility for ends and outcomes.In the event that McCain were to win in November, Sarah Palin would be next in line. What we do know now about Mrs Palin is that she is a religious fundamentalist and by implication a climate change denier,which given the critical nature of the ‘air pollution problem” faced by the Globe, makes her potential election more important than that she is female, a mother, or that the selection is a particularly clever political ploy.

I do not wish to be an alarmist, and the rational case in some instances may be made for adopting that emotional position. Really, I just want facilitate the solution of the problem. I really think the case study method I talk about is very useful for observing events in real time.

The crucial questions regarding climate change are, I believe, the  time frame for  action and the identification of the multiple tipping points. My opinion, easy to state, is that there is a precautionary urgency to go cold turkey on coal-fired power yesterday. Then there is immediate problems about base load power, and the arguments always seem to ignore the virtues of decentralized power generation.