The Dark Side of Climate Change Acceptance

David Trammel's picture

We should be careful what we wish for.

Far-Right Climate Denial Is Scary. Far-Right Climate Acceptance Might Be Scarier.

"Regardless, the far right need not wait for future food shortages to cast climate science as a rationale for ultranationalism. Even in our present era of indefensibly ill-distributed abundance, one can credibly claim that the Third World’s growing affluence poses an existential threat to our own. After all, China’s share of global carbon emissions is twice that of the U.S. and rapidly rising. And while India’s carbon footprint is currently relatively small, it’s poised to explode in the coming decades, as the Earth’s second-most populous country continues to industrialize. If you accept the consensus projections for carbon emissions over the next half-century — but reject the idea that all human lives have inherent value (as, by all appearances, many of our current leaders do) — you can argue somewhat coherently that sustaining the American “way of life” requires keeping the Global South down. In fact, the conservative commentator Ben Shapiro made this very observation late last month.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: "Yup. If you don’t like the #GreenNewDeal, then come up with your own ambitious, on-scale proposal to address the global climate crisis. Until then, we’re in charge - and you’re just shouting from the cheap seats." (on Twitter)

Ben Shapiro: "I did: bombing China’s and India’s coal facilities. It would be far more effective and realistic than anything you’ve proposed thus far. So get on board, climate denier. I guess I’m the boss now." (also on Twitter)

To be sure, no amount of climate fatalism could render Shapiro’s sarcastic proposal coherent. In all circumstances, initiating a nuclear war creates more problems than it solves. But the world’s wealthiest nations may not need to drop bombs on India to stunt its development. It is quite possible that merely refusing to help that country cope with its metastasizing water crisis (which our carbon emissions helped create) will be enough to achieve that evil end."

---

Easy inspiration for a writer, a World where an authoritative American president goes to war with the rest of the World to protect our right to being privileged and consuming a large share of the World's resources.

lathechuck's picture

If one accepts the possibility that the Earth's population must decline substantially to reach a sustainable steady state, then we should not be surprised when some nasty old ideas come crawling out of the dark. Bad ideas like "One man, one woman, one child", and "let's select only The Best People to be allowed to reproduce". And eventually it leads to "our group must, regretfully and humanely, euthanize inferior people, for the good of the planet." Maybe the "comforting" lesson of the collapse of the USSR is that active measures to reduce the population are unnecessary, when poverty, despair, and self-medication unto death will suffice.

Can we be immunized against these repugnant ideas by examining them, or are they inherently too dangerous to review?

David Trammel's picture

Can we be immunized against these repugnant ideas by examining them, or are they inherently too dangerous to review?

I'd like to think we can discuss just about anything on this forum in a civil matter.

Certainly some ideas are terrible and have moral sides to them but what about the more grey issues. We've seen the debate on vaccines play out recently, what about grey issues like gene editing of babies. I've always wondered if they could edit the genes so that no baby born would need glasses, would we want to? As someone who has worn glasses most of his life I could see the appeal.