By Artur Gorokh & Ryan Sherman
It was in southern Utah in 2003 that Aron Ralston amputated his own arm to escape the boulder that had crushed him against the wall of a slot canyon. The only implement on hand was a small multi-tool, and in vain he poked, jabbed, and sawed at his arm, and hacked at the canyon wall and dug at the boulder. Five days later, delirious and severely dehydrated, he realized it had been his preoccupation with the useless tool all along that prevented him from seeing what had to be done.
Last week, Prof. Jon Schuldt of the Department of Communication, spoke at a Cornell Amnesty International discussion about the perception of climate change in the American population. Effective communication, he explained to us, is key in raising awareness and bridging partisanship. “Doomsday” rhetoric does not help, he said, but only serves to limit action and discourage engagement. If he is right, this column will be of no help at all.
You have no doubt been informed that the coming decades will see a world of increasing crop failure, flooding, wildfires, infrastructure failures, droughts and exacerbated inequality. This much we’ve all heard before. Much less talked of is a colossal humanitarian crisis of displaced peoples, the so-called climate refugees. Dire though all this may be, few of us have trouble falling asleep with worry for our fellow humans, or terrified of horrific calamities to come. Climate change is slow, it happens quietly in the interim and, by God, does it make for boring television. This non-urgency itself is a deathly feature. It allows us to distract ourselves with less unpleasant solutions and fall into the same mental trap into which Aron Ralston found himself.
Let me illustrate. After Prof. Jon Schuldt talk, a student stood up and to berate non-present Republicans for their sins and ignorance. The line between the right and wrong was demarcated by the aisle between them. Building solar panels, the student said, will replace coal, create jobs and stimulate the economy. Everyone wins. How incomprehensible anyone would refuse to do something so straightforwardly good!
This Teletubby worldview of win-win-win solutions was also the crux of President Obama’s environmental policy and is a denialism of its own kind. As the former administration’s website boasts, our solar output grew 30-fold and thousands of jobs were created along the way. Impressive, to be sure, but let’s fiddle with phrasing a bit put it this way: $160 billion was spent on subsidies, and as a result solar energy now makes up for a mere 0.6 percent of total supply. This infusion of cash rendered other clean sources of energy less competitive, and even forced several nuclear power plants to shut down.
The reality is that, if we are to replace coal and do it fast (say, by 2050), sunshine alone won’t do the job. It won’t even come close. An invasive energy plan, full of government overreach and deals struck with devils should be forthcoming. We might have to get over our nuclear phobia and invest into a new generation of reactors. Natural gas is not renewable nor all that clean, and fracking is controversial, but it makes for a cheap and abundant resource that could be decisive in temporarily replacing coal. Carbon tax very well may hurt the economy, but it also is a powerful incentive for corporations to reduce their emissions. (Stagnating economies also are much more environmentally friendly, by the way.) These strategies would require us to compromise our values, be they wealth, safety or even freedom, to help manage an impending crisis. But any truly effective action is likely to entail such compromise.
Distracting ourselves with impotent solutions might just prove to be more dangerous in the long run than the outright detachment from reality on the right. What these well-meaning talking points engender are a sense of fighting the good fight by creating an illusion of actionable items. This is evident in the emerging tribal culture based in sustainable garden living, anti-plastic-bag bags and targeted dietary changes. While meritorious on some level to be sure, these are activities that don’t meet climate change in reality, and the good feelings they bring are examples a temporary placebo effect.
Aron Ralston spent days in his own denial before accepting what he had to do to achieve liberation from the boulder that had crushed his arm. Even when faced with the spectre of death, perhaps the truth was just too unpleasant. But severely dehydrated and delirious, he finally abandoned the useless tool and then leveraged his own weight to snap the arm in two, freeing bone from boulder, and allowing himself to escape the canyon (almost) in one piece. But before he was able to do what had to be done, he had to recognize the situation for what it was, and take action that met the problem in reality. Climate does not care from which side of the aisle our political rhetoric derives. It isn’t interested in soothing communication strategies. It doesn't take notice of the scattering of hybrid cars or solar panels. Until our conversations describe facts, and our solutions target reality, we are all climate change deniers.
You have no doubt been informed that the coming decades will see a world of increasing crop failure, flooding, wildfires, infrastructure failures, droughts and exacerbated inequality. This much we’ve all heard before. Much less talked of is a colossal humanitarian crisis of displaced peoples, the so-called climate refugees. Dire though all this may be, few of us have trouble falling asleep with worry for our fellow humans, or terrified of horrific calamities to come. Climate change is slow, it happens quietly in the interim and, by God, does it make for boring television. This non-urgency itself is a deathly feature. It allows us to distract ourselves with less unpleasant solutions and fall into the same mental trap into which Aron Ralston found himself.
Let me illustrate. After Prof. Jon Schuldt talk, a student stood up and to berate non-present Republicans for their sins and ignorance. The line between the right and wrong was demarcated by the aisle between them. Building solar panels, the student said, will replace coal, create jobs and stimulate the economy. Everyone wins. How incomprehensible anyone would refuse to do something so straightforwardly good!
This Teletubby worldview of win-win-win solutions was also the crux of President Obama’s environmental policy and is a denialism of its own kind. As the former administration’s website boasts, our solar output grew 30-fold and thousands of jobs were created along the way. Impressive, to be sure, but let’s fiddle with phrasing a bit put it this way: $160 billion was spent on subsidies, and as a result solar energy now makes up for a mere 0.6 percent of total supply. This infusion of cash rendered other clean sources of energy less competitive, and even forced several nuclear power plants to shut down.
The reality is that, if we are to replace coal and do it fast (say, by 2050), sunshine alone won’t do the job. It won’t even come close. An invasive energy plan, full of government overreach and deals struck with devils should be forthcoming. We might have to get over our nuclear phobia and invest into a new generation of reactors. Natural gas is not renewable nor all that clean, and fracking is controversial, but it makes for a cheap and abundant resource that could be decisive in temporarily replacing coal. Carbon tax very well may hurt the economy, but it also is a powerful incentive for corporations to reduce their emissions. (Stagnating economies also are much more environmentally friendly, by the way.) These strategies would require us to compromise our values, be they wealth, safety or even freedom, to help manage an impending crisis. But any truly effective action is likely to entail such compromise.
Distracting ourselves with impotent solutions might just prove to be more dangerous in the long run than the outright detachment from reality on the right. What these well-meaning talking points engender are a sense of fighting the good fight by creating an illusion of actionable items. This is evident in the emerging tribal culture based in sustainable garden living, anti-plastic-bag bags and targeted dietary changes. While meritorious on some level to be sure, these are activities that don’t meet climate change in reality, and the good feelings they bring are examples a temporary placebo effect.
Aron Ralston spent days in his own denial before accepting what he had to do to achieve liberation from the boulder that had crushed his arm. Even when faced with the spectre of death, perhaps the truth was just too unpleasant. But severely dehydrated and delirious, he finally abandoned the useless tool and then leveraged his own weight to snap the arm in two, freeing bone from boulder, and allowing himself to escape the canyon (almost) in one piece. But before he was able to do what had to be done, he had to recognize the situation for what it was, and take action that met the problem in reality. Climate does not care from which side of the aisle our political rhetoric derives. It isn’t interested in soothing communication strategies. It doesn't take notice of the scattering of hybrid cars or solar panels. Until our conversations describe facts, and our solutions target reality, we are all climate change deniers.
Wow, good job! But does anyone really care about it? I mean powerful people
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