Climate change demands immense changes to the economic system
Mark Lynas says: Solving climate change does not mean rolling back capitalism, suspending the free market or stopping economic growth ( Save us from the miserabilists in the battle over climate change , 12 March). This statement would have made much sense 35 years ago. The urgency for rapid action had not been established. But all this has changed. Whether or not the new crisis reinforces an ideological position on the left (despite splits over nuclear power and GM crops) leading to an outright denialist position on the right is now so much water under the bridge. Immense changes to the economic system must be made over the next few years, and the blame game gets us nowhere. If Kleins belief that corporate capitalism must be dismantled is wrong, it is up to the right to show how the new measures required can work under the present system. Governments should play a powerful role in facilitating compromises, where these can be made, and encouraging national debates on the basis of evidence rather than belief. David Anderson Bingley, West Yorkshire Its people like Naomi Klein and the left generally who are responsible for runaway climate change because their policies for dealing with it are too radical, says Lynas. So they frighten all those fair-minded, reasonable people in the centre and on the right into not caring a fig about it. Then the penny dropped. I realised Lynas was himself a Damascene convert, projecting all blame on to his erstwhile colleagues and comrades of the left. The solution is staring us in the face: it is nuclear energy and GM crops. Funny, thats what big money has been telling (or selling) us all along. You dont have to be anti-science to suspect the alliance of money and power that the corporate world represents. Being suspicious of it seems a good, open-minded place to start. Richard Kuper London Sound advice to non-tribal environmentalists from Mark Lynas: ignore both the flat-earth deniers and the eco-evangelists, and focus on good science, engineering, arithmetic and economics. If Keep it in the ground prompts a flight of capital away from fossil fuels and into clean, 21st-century energy solutions, we should investigage two constructive (and liquid) investment zones: small, modular, molten-salt reactors , being developed by the Canadians and the Chinese; and molten-metal, grid-level storage batteries , being piloted in Hawaii and Cape Cod. John McGrother Buxton, Derbyshire Lynas uses the wrong end of the stick to beat the wrong dog. Since the mid-1960s the war on science has been waged against any change that might have an adverse impact on vested interest. It began with a campaign against the regulation of tobacco products, orchestrated by the marketing Company RJ Reynolds. This was followed by a war against the regulation of other health or environmental hazards reported by the scientific community, for instance, ozone depletion. State interference of any kind, including against the causes of acid rain, CFCs, greenhouse gases and secondhand smoke, was (and is still) seen as an attack on liberty, a dangerous step on the path to communism: Environmentalists were like a watermelon, green on the outside, red within, Naomi Oreskes wrote in Merchants of Doubt (2010). Wiebina Heesterman Birmingham The scientific narrative has not been captured by one, rather extreme, end of the political spectrum, but by global industries whose profits are threatened by the carbon bubble that will result if substantial fossil fuel deposits remain unexploited (the deniers) and by people who accept the scientific evidence but dwell on the apocalyptic image of a future world of runaway warming (the sensationalists). Apocalyptic images are exciting; they produce adrenalin, which is addictive. That is why disaster movies are big box-office. But this makes climate change just another spectacle. Lynas himself is a leading producer of this commodity in his books. It is a bit rich, then, that he accuses Naomi Klein of pursuing an ideological project, as if climate change could be anything else (but the right usually denies the politics of its own position). Klein has identified aspects of this late phase of global capitalism the huge profits made from war and reconstruction, and the growth of a private security industry that show it to be aggressively destructive. Environmentalists do not have a monopoly on Enlightenment values no one does but when Lynas asserts that Klein makes environmental responsibility politically toxic he is insulting and, again, alarmist, which is another indication that he is a purveyor of the alienation to which he objects. He makes the debate a spectacle rather than a rational exchange. Professor Malcolm Miles Totnes, Devon The developing worlds emergence from poverty is indeed non-negotiable. Climate chaos doesnt negotiate. But climate chaos is what will stop the developing world from acquiring, and the developed world from continuing to enjoy, unprecedented and lethal levels of material consumption. Our challenge is not to fantasise about technologies to save us from this future. It is to face it honestly, and start retrieving what we can. John Foster Lancaster University Had Lynas attended the alternative peoples summit at the COP 20 climate change talks in Lima last year, he would have heard a succession of speakers from Latin Americas indigenous communities rejecting development models imposed on them by transnational capital. They are in the frontline of the fight against climate change and are struggling to stop the destruction of their environment by mining and mono-crop agriculture for export. They would not see themselves in terms of left or right, but fully understand that an economic model based on infinite growth, with the conmensurate depletion of the planets natural resources, is incompatible with saving the Earth from the catastrophic effects of global warming. This does not mean sufficient energy cannot be provided for the needs of future generations, but that it must be responsibly sourced and publicly owned instead of being left to market forces and monolithic corporations whose priorities lie in ripping off consumers and making money out of burning fossil fuels. As an energy trade union, we support the necessary, just transition to a low-carbon economy, and are members of the global network Trade Unions for Energy Democracy. As the slogan read in Lima: Lets change the system not the climate. Bert Schouwenburg International officer, GMB I went to the climate change march on Saturday 7 March expecting to be fired up. I came away disappointed. The issue, climate change, had been hijacked by multiple organisations pushing their own agendas anti- nuclear, anti fracking, trade unions, political groups etc. Anyone viewing on TV would probably see several organisations they would not support. Earth is not affected by politics, just by CO2 emissions. The climate change movement has to work from the bottom up to change the minds of people in every country, so as to cause each countrys government to take action. Hugh Baker Leatherhead, Surrey I picked up a programme for the Edinburgh international science festival in the week that the Guardian ran its stark climate change cover features. I was surprised to note the low profile given in the brochure to the most pressing issue facing scientists, and humanity in general, until I looked at the sponsors page: Total, Scottish Gas, Senergy, Eon, Exxon Mobil, Cairn and half a dozen other fossil fuel extraction and provision companies are prominent. All the energy events, which mostly focus on technological responses, are directly sponsored by Eon. A typical example is a debate on how much oil is really left in the North Sea and what its value is... supported by the Scottish Oil Club, the panel of which is entirely made up of oil industry representatives plus the shadow energy minister. The National Gallery in London has attracted criticism for accepting BP sponsorship but at least there was no direct conflict of interest. Such financing makes a mockery of the objectivity the festival is designed to promote. Technological fixes are mostly a distraction from the urgent issue of drastically reducing emissions this decade, which extends beyond the boundaries of science. Climate scientists have attracted flak for not speaking out more. They have done their job. What about the scientists who are the crux of the fossil fuel industry, not to mention those who work directly in public engagement through events such as this festival? How can they be aware of the imminent catastrophe facing our planet and yet continue to facilitate it? Are their personal interests in their job not overridden by their personal interests in their future and that of their children? Andrew Rubens Edinburgh Lynass article does not do justice to the great campaign of concern the Guardian has embarked upon. By its very nature, climate change is an extreme situation that demands extreme measures. Now is not a time for fudging about, desperately trying to seek some kind of moderate consensus that has no hope of tackling this global threat. Does he really imagine that the rich and powerful will finally face up to what is already happening to us without an intensification of the international pressure for absolutely fundamental change to the way we live our lives? When have they ever given anything up without an enormous struggle? The article could be read as some kind of PR appeal to take the debate back to square one on behalf of corporate interests. We have been discussing climate change for decades and, as Naomi Klein has said: The only thing rising faster than our emissions is the output of words pledging to lower them. Just because billions of us have long since recognised the link between capitalisms insatiable appetite for growth and consumption and its catastrophic effects on our resources and climate doesnt make that analysis wrong. Nor is it the preserve of lefties. Accepting the doubling or trebling of energy consumption by 2050 as a hard reality in a world that supposedly must continue to go on developing and expanding will not help anyone, nor will being an apologist for capitalisms excesses. Can he not see that we may be forced to accept a simpler life, which, paradoxically, may make us more content in the long term? Have we really got an alternative to this? Peter Strother Upper Finlarig, Highland Campaigning on climate change should not be aligned to the left. The crucial element of change in British society is the small-C conservative. The anti-roads campaign of the 90s stopped hundreds of roads because local people, often Conservatives, came out to defend their countryside. My father-in-law, a staunch Labour supporter, worked closely with the local Tory mayor to deliver a superb childrens playground and a community bus service in Lichfield. Our conservative MP spent hours on the phone to persuade the local council to allow a community garden. However, the issue is not about left or right but about thinkers and doers. The small-C conservative wants to make it happen, not to have a discussion about inclusive proposals and social consensus. Environmentalists tend to be good at attending general meetings about renewable energy but, when an application for a real wind turbine is before a council, they rarely engage. The green NGOs need to stop concentrating on attracting the thinkers and e-petition signers but also to engage apolitically with the rest of society on practical solutions with local councils, planning, communities and MPs. Victoria Harvey Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire Lynas is spot-on. The triumph of ideology over scientific evidence hampers effective policy to slow down global warming. Opposition among greens to fracking is an outstanding example. Of course the location of fracking must take account of local geology and social factors, but the country that has recently done more than any other to slow global warning has been the United States, which has greatly reduced its carbon emissions by switching massively from coal to gas. It did so by unlocking vast reserves of shale gas through fracking. The most urgent need in policy on climate change is to prevent the huge projected increase in the building of coal-fired power stations. Gas is still a fossil fuel and can be only a transitional solution. But its carbon impact is about half that of coal. It can give us a breathing space, more effectively and quickly than any alternative now on offer. We need time to develop the most effective long-term solutions to avoid a catastrophic rise in global temperatures. Dick Taverne House of Lords Lynas assumes the classic sophist mantle, exposed by Socrates some centuries ago, but regularly recycled as the comfort-zone from which to launch any plague on both your houses diatribe when serious change threatens or is needed. Characteristically, for him it is the left that is most at fault, because the lefts global doom threats ... have made the right embrace denialism rather than any long-term corporate commitment to poorly controlled carbon release. His acerbic parody of Naomi Kleins analysis and intention raises questions about his own motives and affiliations, and are a gratuitous insult to people around the world who are coming together to keep up the pressure on governments and corporations to clean up their acts before it is too late. The scientists are predominantly on their side, too. Is Lynass real fear that the difficult processes of coping with climate change, in so far as they achieve success, will trigger new, more insistent questions about how we allowed our world to degenerate to this extent, and how the causes may correlate with those of other issues inequality, educational opportunity, economic malfunction and so on? Given his apparent views, these could well be the real questions keeping him awake at night. Ralph Windle Arts Social Action, Witney