Indeed, the mainstream media seem to have generally lost interest in this story, perhaps because it has become so commonplace. This despite the fact that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has just officially declared that 2012 was the hottest year on record for the continental United States and the second-worst for “extreme” weather conditions, such as hurricanes, droughts, and floods.
Seven of the ten hottest years in U.S. records (dating back to 1895), and four of the hottest five, have followed 1990, according to NOAA figures. The year 2012 also saw Arctic sea ice hit a record low, based on more than thirty years of satellite observations. And at a global level, according to NOAA scientists, all twelve years of the twenty-first century so far (2001–2012) rank among the fourteen warmest in the 133-year period since records have been kept.
Despite all the facts, there is a deafening silence on the part of world leadership over the plausible relationship between extreme weather events and human-induced climate disruption. The analogy that comes to mind is the emperor Nero playing the fiddle while his city, Rome, burned down! But it is too late now, anyway—the “Planet Earth Climate Destabilization Experiment,” as I call it, is under way, and we just have to wait to see how bad things are going to get. We have poked a tiger in the eye, and we just have to hope we will get away without suffering too many consequences. We should be very concerned about disrupting the relatively predictable weather that we currently enjoy, something that is critical not only for human living conditions in most parts of the world but also for the relative stability of our local economies and livelihoods. Nevertheless, it is more convenient to simply deny the problem. Indeed, the news media seem to have gotten weary of reporting extreme weather events and don’t bother anymore unless the events are close to home. Were readers in America aware, for example, that Pakistan had a second megaflood in 2011? Both of these catastrophic floods affected a single area, washed away vital crops, forced almost two million people to flee their homes, and left them suffering from malaria, hepatitis, and other diseases. And did you hear that the city of Beijing had record-breaking floods in 2012? The heaviest rainfall to hit China’s capital in sixty years left many dead, stranded thousands at the main airport, and flooded major roads. Almost two million people were affected, and economic losses were estimated at $1.5 billion. But this kind of event is no longer considered international news—as it has become far too common.
In the worst-case scenario, we could even find ourselves enduring the same wild weather that plagued times past, swinging between ice ages and warm periods. But the skeptic can argue that current climate models might turn out to be wrong after all, and that climate destabilization might not be as severe as the alarmists suggest. And as Matt Ridley points out in The Rational Optimist, some prior doomsday predictions turned out to be overstated. For example, Rachel Carson’s 1962 book, “Silent Spring,” documented the detrimental effects of pesticides on the environment, particularly on birds. The title was meant to evoke a future spring season in which no bird could be heard singing because they had all vanished due to pesticide abuse. Given the state of knowledge at the time, Carson’s additional concerns about effects of synthetic chemicals on human health were reasonable, and many have been borne out. But decades later some suggest that the overreaction to this seminal book also did some harm—for example, by eliminating the vital role that DDT played in killing malaria-carrying mosquitoes. But it also seems that the resulting cleanup of toxic lead and mercury from the environment has had a positive effect on the brain development of children. Another example that Ridley cites is Paul Ehrlich’s 1969 book, “The Population Bomb,” whose original edition began with the statement, “The battle to feed all of humanity is over … nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate.” Ehrlich and his wife, Anne, still stand by the basic ideas in the book, believing that it achieved their goals because “it alerted people to the importance of environmental issues and brought human numbers into the debate on the human future.” And there is no doubt that many issues related to population growth were addressed only because of these warnings. But the book also made a number of specific predictions that did not come to pass. Ridley argues that, guided by our human ingenuity and ability to adjust to change, we took action to fix some of these problems, and the predictions turned out to be worse than the reality. So his comforting notion is that humanity can and will fix the climate problem when the time comes to really deal with it.
But there is one big difference between pesticide pollution and population growth on the one hand and global climate change on the other. Unlike any other current policy issue, the potential for climate destabilization is one we simply cannot afford to get wrong the first time around. The fact is that we humans are conducting a very dangerous experiment with our climate on the one and only planet that we have. Whether or not the recent spate of extreme weather events is a harbinger of things to come, the point is that there is no way of turning back once we have set major climate destabilization in motion. And if it happens, the consequences will be devastating for all of humanity at both the local and the global level. So unlike almost any other policy issue, about which we can afford to debate the pros and cons and change our minds later as new information comes in, there is no margin for error here. There is only one planet, one biosphere, and one Anthropocene epoch, and we must err on the side of caution!
Many approaches have been taken to try to convince individual citizens to take climate change seriously. These include the arguments that we have an ethical and moral obligation to the less fortunate on the planet and to future generations, that we are conducting a risky experiment with the planet, that the global economy will suffer, and so on. However, none of these really has had an effect because of our all-powerful capacity for reality denial. The resulting optimism bias makes most people (even if they believe the science) just go on with life and hope for the best. Between the time the writing of this book began, in 2007, and the time it was completed, toward the end of 2012, much change has occurred, and there has been a spate of extreme weather events. Regrettable as they are, these events have at least made many people begin to think that climate change may be real. However, as long as there is no certainty regarding the future of climate, the average person will continue to hope for the best, and the naysayers and profiteers will take advantage of that uncertainty.
Even appeals to individuals based on the fact that local climate disruption will affect their lifestyles and pocketbooks generate the response “How can you be certain?” So let me offer an analogy that the average human can perhaps better understand and relate to. Imagine you are going to take a long airplane flight and you’re told that there is just a 10 percent chance that things will go badly wrong and that the plane will crash. Would you get on that plane? Of course not: Most people would want at least a 99 percent certainty that the flight is safe. Well, the same is true for climate disruption.
By the time you’re reading this, a majority of skeptics may have finally begun to admit that something bad is happening to our climate and that we humans may be contributing to it. But given the extreme degree of polarization surrounding the debate, it is unlikely that any consensus on action will be reached soon. If so, there are alternate sensible approaches that can be pursued. Durwood Zaelke, founder of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development, and Veerabhadran Ramanathan, a professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, suggest a short-term strategy that involves cutting emissions of four climate pollutants: “black carbon, a component of soot; methane, the main component of natural gas; lower-level ozone, a main ingredient of urban smog; and hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, which are used as coolants. They account for as much as 40 percent of current warming. Unlike carbon dioxide, these pollutants are short-lived in the atmosphere. If we stop emitting them, they will disappear in a matter of weeks to a few decades. We have technologies to do this, and, in many cases, laws and institutions to support these cuts.”
Another reasonable approach is suggested by Peter Byck in his movie “Carbon Nation.” Byck points out that even if you agree to disagree with those who deny climate disruption by humans, most such denialists are still very much in favor of clean air, clean water, and clean sources of energy. One can even point out that there are opportunities to make good money in connection with several of the new approaches to alternative energy. Perhaps this is the way to bypass our human denial of climate change and deal with the problem.
Again, let us hope it is not too late to turn back the clock so that we can continue to have a relatively stable climate, as we have enjoyed in the last ten thousand years. But as of this writing, we simply continue to deny the limits to which we can push the planet.
One can build a logical argument that our innate reality denial, coupled with our runaway technological achievements, virtually guarantees that we will be facing global calamities on a scale never before seen. Many different scenarios can be constructed around resource depletion, climate change, disease pandemics, etc., that will lead to a breakdown in modern civilization, war, and human death and suffering on a massive scale. History suggests that we will not learn any long-term lessons from the first few of these disasters, in large part because of our nemesis, reality denial. Indeed, it is arguable that we are destined ultimately to destroy ourselves as a species—or, at the very least, to continue to cycle between well-developed civilization and catastrophic collapse, never reaching a technological state much beyond what we currently enjoy. We hope that these words do not prove to be prophetic. But we may well be in for a cycle of catastrophic collapses and have to rebuild ourselves, much as many civilizations have done in the past.
Even those of us who agree that human nature and technology are essentially incompatible would like to think that eventually, perhaps after a disaster or two, we would shape up and come to grips with our basic problems. One can be an optimist in this manner and still accept all the arguments here about self-awareness and denial. Indeed, it is probably essential for our long-term success that we embrace the idea that reality denial is a fundamental part of human nature. For only by knowing this enemy can we consciously change our innate, destructive behavioral tendencies. Ironically, many readers of this statement are likely to deny the important point we are making. In other words, we are in a state of denial about our denial of reality, and this is not an easy problem to overcome on a daily basis.
It is only by understanding reality denial as an enemy within that we might be able to overcome it. An alcoholic is not necessarily a drunk. But in order to avoid becoming one, it is necessary for the alcoholic to acknowledge his innate tendencies and to actively fight the impulses that drive a behavior that is satisfying in the short term but self-destructive over the long haul. Just as an alcoholic must sometimes hit psychological or emotional bottom in order to come to grips with his problem, it may require a small nuclear war or a major climatic disruption in order for us to see the light. We haven’t seen it yet, nor have we even acknowledged the underlying trait (denial) that makes it so difficult for us to deal with our critical issues.
Many of our everyday problems also have a component of denial—whether we’re investing in a risky scheme, deciding to stay with an abusive partner, or whatever. Those who give advice professionally or otherwise can easily detect the denial component in a person’s situation and advise the subject to escape from the danger. What they may fail to recognize is that reality denial is such a fundamental part of being human that one cannot easily just shed its clutches. To continue the alcoholic analogy, we can’t abandon denial any more than we can change our fundamental personality traits. What we can do is to recognize this trait and try to manage its deleterious effects, just as the alcoholic manages his disease. Indeed, we don’t want to completely escape from our state of denial, even if we could—it’s the only thing that keeps us sane in the face of rational realization of mortality. We just need to recognize and manage its pathological consequences. We need psychotherapy on a societal and global scale.
