“Although scientists acknowledge that uncertainties exist in our knowledge of global warming, the source of the carbon that has led to the recent buildup of atmospheric carbon dioxide [anthropogenic sources] isn’t one of them.”
-Mann & Kump, Dire Predictions p. 34
In a time when climate change information is so readily available (and scientifically linked to human activities), I often ask myself how so many people can deny it. Surely no one looks forward to the predicted effects of global warming in happy anticipation, so what makes these people tick?
Mann and Kump propose that skeptics attribute global warming to natural flucuations. The attribution is logically desirable: if changes are natural, mankind doesn’t have to change anything. Yet, even this argument is based in flawed logic. Humans weren’t around the last time temperature trends were so high; dinosaurs were. The Earth will continue to spin, yes, but will humans have tickets to the Tilt-a-Whirl? It’s hard to say.
So what can make U.S. citizens continue deny global warming? My answer is two-fold:
1) A Flawed View of Wilderness – William Cronon argues that our view of wilderness as removed from mankind is flawed. If were are removed from nature, then it follows that we cannot affect it from our suburban homes. The idea is a dangerous one because it denies the linkage between human activities and the environment for purely Romantic reasons. Yes, sitting by a tree and writing a poem about it is nice, Wordsworth, but it doesn’t mean that mankind is removed from the natural order. In fact, Cronon argues that it is precisely this romanticism that is the problem: Nature with a capital N is a man-made construction.
2) Democracy – The 2nd answer (and coincidentally the 2nd worst form of government in Plato’s Republic) follows directly from the first. If we see Nature as it appears to be (removed, unalterable), as opposed to how it actually is (alterable, our responsibility) then we as a democratic society will act incorrectly. And even if we changed our view of Nature (so that everyone had a vast philosophical understanding of it) even then we would act selfishly instead of correcting the problem. Socrates argues that citizens of democracies will be ruled by their desires alone, allowing wisdom to fall to the wayside (funny that he predicted the United States in ancient Athens.) When ruled by desires (more money, land, material possessions) it’s easy to see the thought processes: will solving global warming hinder my acquisition of stuff? Yes. Then I’d rather not solve global warming.
The Republic
More problems with democracy:
1) Diffusion of Responsibility – In large groups (such as forms of government) individual responsibility is diffused according to this psychological tenant. Unlike an aristocracy, timocracy, oligarchy, et cetera, in a democracy the responsibility to make sound choices rests in a large group (the people), and so people can more easily serve their desires when they have no personal responsibility to solve the problem.
2) Speed of Decisions – Because decisions are made based upon a consensus of very large groups (and these groups consist of people whose choices get them re-elected) the speed of the decision-making processes in democracies is comparatively slow to other forms of government. And with an issue as pressing as global warming, we need to make decisions more quickly. Mann and Kump explain that it takes hundreds or thousands of years for a net removal of a single carbon dioxide molecule from our atmosphere — so we cannot afford to continue at our present rates of consumption for much longer without ruining the next hundreds or thousands of years!
We need change and we need it fast.
We need to recognize that we are an integral part of Nature.
We need to recognize that we are the principal cause of global warming.
We need to recognize that we have the ability to stop global warming before we go too far.
We need to recognize that we must act quickly.
We need to recognize that it is everyone’s shared responsibility.
-Brett
Change We Need!
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Tags: climate change, democracy, philosophy, wilderness
