Climate, oil and terror

He points to a study by Socolow and Pacala in Science (August 13, 2004) which provides a portfolio of 15 different measures which, if half are implemented worldwide, will avoid reaching a level of atmospheric CO2 which is double the pre-industrial age level. According to the authors, all of these measures use known, proven science and technology.

In the current bull market (bull in many senses of the word) in climate change scepticism, there are huge obstacles to implementing any of these measures, let alone half of them.

While I’ve been a climate change ditherer myself, I think that Friedman’s quote from California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to the effect that, if 98 out of 100 doctors tell him that his child is sick and needs attention and two tell him not to worry, he’s going to listen to the 98, carries a lot of weight.

There may be climate extremists in those who accept warming as a real and pressing phenomenon, there may be many non-human sources of atmospheric CO2 and Al Gore may have over-egged his inconvenient pudding, but the weight of responsible opinion among the community of the competent that now holds there to be a problem requires sustained and creative government attention.

The point that I would add to that, in echo of Friedman, is the additional motivation that reducing our dependence on energy and imported energy in particular now has geo-strategic dimensions.

We can no longer simply hide behind the partial rationalism of economics in “yes, butting” the requirement to act. We must also explicitly accept that if we do nothing to reduce our use of petroleum we agree to keep funding fundamentalist Islam and the terrorist groups that it spawns.

We must accept that we continue to subsidise lazy and despotic governments by flooding their coffers with petro-dollars.

Finally, and perhaps worst of all, we accept that we will continue to connive in the undermining of civil world order, as environmental catastrophes inevitably exacerbate the tensions between and among our brothers and sisters struggling for their own time in the setting sun of affluence.