Upon reading Clive Hamilton’s comments in yesterday’s Crikey (Hamilton: denying the coming climate Holocaust, Item 3), I opened up my copy of Martin Gilbert’s ‘The Holocaust: The Jewish Tragedy’ at random to page 230 where I discovered this passage:
A further fifteen thousand German Jews were sent to Kovno, principally from Berlin, Munich, Vienna, Breslau and Frankfurt.
An eye-witness in Kovno, Dr Aharon Peretz, later recalled how, as the deportees were being led along the road which went past the ghetto, towards the Ninth Fort, they could be heard asking the guards, “Is the camp still far?”
They had been told they were being sent to a work camp. But, Peretz added, “We know were that road led. It led to the Ninth Fort, to the prepared pits.”
But first, the Jews from Germany were kept for three days in underground cellars, with ice-covered walls, and without food or drink. Only then, frozen and starving, were they ordered to undress, taken to the pits, and shot.
The challenge for Clive Hamilton is to explain how an argument over appropriate policy for the future is equivalent to the Holocaust where millions of people were deliberately put to death. The Jews and the Gypsies and the homos-xuals and the clergymen and the trade-unionists and others of Europe did not die through inaction, but rather they were deliberately and systematically hunted down, and murdered in what can only be described as an industrial scale slaughter.
Hamilton can make as many fancy-pants arguments he likes about ‘consequentialism’ and what-not. To equate climate change scepticism (however defined — Kevin Rudd has three different definitions) with the Holocaust is the mark of a moral dwarf. It is a good thing that Hamilton speaks of morality and the science of climate change, because it turns out there is more to climate change than just the science.
Climate change involves scientific questions, economic questions, technological questions and, yes, moral questions too. Unfortunately we run out of the science very early in the piece. Even if we assume, for argument sake, that the IPCC version of the science is correct, that still does not take us very far. So imagine we know with more than 90 percent confidence that anthropogenic global warming is occurring, what next? We have exhausted our scientific knowledge already.
The questions, “Should we do anything?” “What should we do?”, and “How should we do it?” remain unanswered. These are not scientific questions at all. In the first instance there are economic questions, “How much will doing ‘something’ cost?”
Perhaps it would be cheaper to do nothing and adapt. Perhaps not. We simply do not know. The Australian Treasury modelling does not answer that question; indeed it doesn’t model the actual policy under consideration.
But Hamilton invites us to consider ‘morality’. So let’s raise some of those questions. Who should pay the costs of fixing the climate change problem assuming that it can be fixed? Perhaps the industrialised world; after all it is they who first caused the problem. But it is the developing world that will benefit most from solving the problem, so perhaps they should pay. On the other hand, it is previous generations that caused the problem and future generations that will benefit, so why should current generations bear all the costs?
That suggests that the costs of climate change abatement should be financed through some or other long-lived debt instrument that will transfer the burden (as well as the benefits) to future generations. Should costs be apportioned on an aggregate basis or a per capita basis? And so on.
There are heaps of unanswered questions and issues beyond the science that so excites the commentariat. All we really know is that the Australian government and other world governments want some sort of cap and trade scheme, and this is because of the science. What is lacking is a discussion of the issues beyond the science. This important consideration has been lost in the name calling.
In simple terms, the science makes up a very small component of our decision making.
All the other aspects of the decision have not been adequately debated, and have not been well explained to the community, and labelling doubters and dissenters as mass-murdering war criminals is not appropriate in a democracy.
Sinclair Davidson is a professor in the School of Economics, Finance and Marketing at RMIT University and a senior fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs.
Eh? How does that work?
So the professor of economics wants to tell me what is, or is not, appropriate in a democracy. The political candidate has said he accepts the science, will not be distracted by terminology like “denier” and now wants to move on to the politics of action. Perhaps the professor could could leave off the Holocaust distraction (a complete dead end if you ask me) and instead raise some economics issues for the debate? Or even explain what he means by “do nothing and adapt”. Is that like stop and go at the same time?
The 363 kg ( 800 pound) gorilla in the room in this debate is world population. Population is the biggest threat environmentally, far in excess of any climate change issues which one can consider. Every person on earth has environmental footprint, a component of which is the absorption of fossil fuel. This finite resource will eventually run out, so adaption is essential. Nobody, and I mean nobody at the political level is addressing this issue. The world has been able to sustain population growth in the last 200 years as a consequence of burning fossil fuels. Every man woman and child on earth with a few rare exceptions of hunter gatherers absorbs a component of fossil fuel usage. This includes nuclear power.
Each level of technological advance has enabled us to extract more food from the environment, but with an ongoing environmental impact which is destined to destroy the world environment it remains unchecked.
The government’s CPRS is only a token gesture as a political sop because politicians are afraid to tell the community the truth. They pledge adherence to carbon dioxide reduction but are deferring the impact on the community because they are afraid of the political repercussions.
Despite getting a bad press, Malthus was correct, but he did not foresee the impact of technological advance, which is being purchased at the cost of the environment. The 800 pound gorilla is the incapacity of individuals substantially influenced by superstitious repetitive behaviour, including religion, to fuel world population growth with its rising environmental impact through industrialisation.
A sustainable human relationship with the environment requires such a dramatic shift in cognitive behaviour that it is politically inconceivable. All the chest beating about climate change will come to nothing as the eventual impact is outside of the life span of most individuals currently making political decisions. It is conceivable that one could have a harmonious environmental relationship with the world’s population with say 1 billion people, with a current Western lifestyle with total dependence on renewable resources.
However to reach such a position would require the elimination of over 5 billion which would make the Holocaust look like a Sunday school picnic, and seriously erode property values to boot. Such a position howevercould be achieved over a period of say 250 years if each couple was restricted having one child.
So here we have a classic case of prisoners’ dilemma with nobody being prepared to make the first move, and a fundamental preoccupation with growth at any cost.
It’s pretty straightforward Sinclair. All the questions you raise cannot be addressed while denialists and their cynical cheer squad continue to muddy the waters (whether for political or economic benefit). You are right in that there’s a long way to go before solutions can even be properly scoped but we cannot move off the starting line until the flat-earthers accept (as you appear to have) that there is a real problem that needs addressing.
As well, Clive was careful to note he was not seeking to diminish the horror of the Holocaust, rather to put the impending crisis and those who are foolishly dissmissive of the issues into the context of Holocaust denialism. With all possible respect to survivors and their kin, isn’t it clear that the consequences of a general acceptance of the Climate change denialists far outweigh the consequences of accepting the ravings of a few neo-nazi nutjobs?
Real population control is kind of anathema to us when we are creatures who count reproduction among our most powerful drives. The only way the population is going to get under control is when it’s done by external forces. And that’s going to be a hell of a thing.