By J
I am an agnostic about global warming. Is it because I’m a waffler? I hope not. My problem is that I am not a scientist and have no way of making an empirical analysis of the question on my own. Beyond that, when I go for answers from the “experts,” I get conflicting answers. I am told that the “overwhelming majority” of scientists agree that “man-made global warming” is a reality. But then I come across scientists — who do not seem to be “tools of the oil companies” or “right-wing flakes” — armed with facts and figures who disagree. Who’s right? I don’t know. Especially when we are told that even colder weather can be a consequence of global warming, something about the impact of the “polar vortex.”
That leaves us with the question of how this matter should be handled in our schools. What should we teach our children about this issue? That global warming is a reality, as the majority of scientists say? Or should we give equal weight to the climate-change deniers?
If not equal weight, what about a reference to “some dissent in the scientific community” on the issue? Would that be sufficient and appropriate?
After all, there have been instances when the consensus view of scientists in the past turned out to be wrong. People once thought that the sun revolved around the earth. Global warming activists, such as Al Gore and Robert Kennedy Jr., argue against this proposition, insisting that global warming is a “settled issue” and that giving a forum in our schools for climate-change deniers would be tantamount to giving a forum for flat-earthers. Is that an apt and fair comparison? It strikes me that the burden of proof should be on the climate-change activists to make the case that those who deny global warming are in the same category as flat-earthers.
There is another issue. Let us say that we accept that the consensus view of the scientific community is correct and that global warming is taking place: What should we do in response? Do we have a rational method of stopping and reversing the warming, one that will not do more harm than good? A column in the September 19 issue of Forbes magazine argues we do not. It offers food for thought. The column could serve as the basis for a lesson plan for teachers and parents seeking a fair-minded and honest approach to this issue.
The column, by Steven F. Hayward, is entitled “Climate Change Has Jumped the Shark.” Hayward is a widely published author on the issue of global warming. He argues that there is a hidden agenda among climate-change activists. Specifically, that they are using global warming for the purpose of promoting their bias against free-market capitalism.
Hayward begins his case by pointing out that the “climate orthodoxy” of environmental activists, “essentially replacing all hydrocarbon energy in the space of less than two generations” and an “80 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, worldwide, by the year 2050,” would “take the United States back to a level of hydrocarbon energy use last seen more than 100 years ago.”
Hayward asks us to consider what that would mean for our way of life, the reduction in jobs, and the end of many of the creature comforts we have become accustomed to. Do we want to live without our air conditioners, our cars, recreational vehicles and boats, as well as the vast array of technical and digital accessories that depend upon access to electrical power — which is, we must never forget, generated by fossil fuels.
Even if the most committed environmental activists are willing to “go back to nature” and live such a life, Hayward argues it will not make much difference in the level of world emissions since the Chinese, the Indians, and other developing countries in the Third World have no intention of keeping their people in the poverty that would result from a cutback to their industrialization. Hayward points to India’s new environmental minister, Prakash Javadekar, who stated flatly in late September that “India is not willing to discuss limitations on its rapidly growing energy use and greenhouse gas emissions.”
Javadekar told The New York Times, “India’s first task is eradication of poverty. Twenty percent of our population doesn’t have access to electricity, and that’s our top priority. We will grow faster, and our emissions will rise.” Chinese leaders have made the same point. This means that, even if the United States and Europe were willing to return to a more primitive economic level in an effort to stop global warming, it would make little difference.
The developing world, according to Hayward, “needs to triple its energy supply over the next generation if it is going to raise hundreds of millions out of abject poverty, and that means using abundant hydrocarbon energy.”
It is at this point that we hear a faction among global-warming activists argue that there is no need for the world to surrender economic growth to protect the planet. They tell us it is feasible, in Hayward’s words, to “shift to renewable energy (chiefly solar, wind, and biofuels),” a move which, they tell us, “would launch us down the golden road to a post-carbon energy future.” But is it feasible?
This is where the debate should take place. Is the “shift” to renewable energy something that can be done anytime soon? Hayward says no; that “the amounts of low-carbon energy developed over the past two decades have required enormous government subsidies and have delivered negligible reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. (In some cases, like biofuels from palm oil and corn, the full environmental tradeoff is likely negative.) The bitter irony for the climateers is that the most significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions have been achieved by the production of newly abundant cheap natural gas through fracking, which has been displacing coal at a rapid rate.”
This brings us to the hidden agenda of the “climateers.” If there are no realistic alternatives to fossil fuels on the horizon, and if Third World countries are going to continue to increase their use of fossil fuels, why do the global warming activists push forward? Hayward calls our attention to a new book by Naomi Klein, This Changes Everything. The left-wing website CommonDreams describes Klein’s thesis as follows: “Forget everything you think you know about global warming. The really inconvenient truth is that it’s not about carbon — it’s about capitalism.”
Hayward thanks Klein for her candor. She makes clear that the only way to achieve the reductions in gas emissions that environmental activists seek is by ending the free-market system that permits private industrialists to continue to manufacture at the level they think best for their businesses. In a socialist economy, on the other hand (at least in the idealized socialist system that endures in the imaginations of the secular left), businesses owned by the government will be willing to cut back on production levels to protect the environment. That, says Hayward, is the endgame for those he calls the “climateers.”
Hayward concludes with the following: “The argument of [Klein’s] book in one sentence is that only by overthrowing capitalism can we solve climate change.” This is why it gets us nowhere to ask climate change activists to give us realistic alternatives to fossil fuels, or to consider the blow to our economy that would follow if we implemented their calls for reductions in greenhouse emissions. These concerns only matter if we are seeking to protect the environment, while at the same time maintaining a prosperous free-market economy. Hayward argues that is not the goal of a significant number of global warming activists. Quite the contrary.
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Readers are invited to submit comments and questions about this and other educational issues. The e-mail address for First Teachers is fitzpatrijames@sbcglobal.net, and the mailing address is P.O. Box 15, Wallingford CT 06492.
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