Vote With Knowledge – There Is No Planet B
Allan Maynard, MSc. – October 2024
About 50% of the world’s population – literally billions of people – are voting in 2024. I wish I could be sure that the state of planet earth (climate change and ecological collapse) would be a deciding factor. There is no turning away – the world is in a crisis beyond even the direst of predictions that date back into the late 1800s. The warming planet is wreaking havoc over the entire globe – intensifying forest fires, droughts, sea- and land-ice loss, rising sea-levels, unprecedented and unpredictable flooding, and other storm events. Our oceans, home to more than half of all the world’s species is 30% more acidic signalling the most rapid shift in ocean chemistry in the past 50 million years.
The Greenland ice cap is losing an average of 30m tonnes per hour which is 20% more than predicted. This is likely to accelerate a collapse of the ocean currents called the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (Amoc), with severe consequences for humanity.
The crisis is real, it’s major and must be addressed much more aggressively than in the past number of decades.
A stranded car sits in flood waters as Tropical Storm Helene strikes, in Boone, North Carolina, U.S. September 27, 2024
CASE CLOSED – IT IS US
The science is clear – human activity (the burning of fossil fuels) is the cause of this crisis. This clear fact becomes highly inconvenient to those with vested interests in business as usual. Trillions of dollars of assets will have to be left in the ground as the world moves away from energy based on fossil fuels. The industry response to this inconvenient truth has been massive investments for misinformation and disinformation campaigns designed to undermine the science. Unfortunately, this investment has had success with many voters still believing that the science is not certain. BUT IT IS CERTAIN.
The degree of scientific certainty about the impact of greenhouse gases is now comparable to the level of agreement on evolution, plate tectonics, germ theory and the impacts of cigarette smoking. The consensus is almost 100%. Here is a list of 200 scientific organizations all over the world (science academies and associations) that hold the position that Climate Change has been caused by human. action. https://www.opr.ca.gov/facts/list-of-scientific-organizations.html
This is not a trivial list and covers almost all relevant science around the world. Those of us in high-emitting countries cannot hide behind a defence of ignorance.
WHY THEN – A POLITICAL DIVIDE?
It is hard to fathom, with the clear evidence concerning the severity of the crisis and the overwhelming scientific agreement, that this issue would not then be approached in a bipartisan manner – that is “all hands-on deck.” But this is clearly not the case. ‘Right wing’ (or conservative) political parties around the world have been fighting, and at times even mocking this scientific consensus.
There are many studies in the literature examining this situation. Evidence of a link between people supporting right-wing political parties and climate-change scepticism was identified in a 2022 study from the University of Oxford and the Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences (see reference below). One common denominator seems to be a general distrust of scientific consensus. This also seemed the case in the response to the Covid pandemic.
There is no doubt that Big Industry, with vested interests in business as usual, takes advantage of this distrust by funding campaigns to exaggerate it by obfuscating the science. It is in their interests to support politicians that can take this distrust and nurture it into the realm of conspiracy theories and culture wars. They shamelessly treat misinformation as a political strategy. Unfortunately, these campaigns have been successful in delaying or even reversing the needed progress. This is one of the major reasons why the crisis is now so extreme.
Consider Brazil under the administration of Jair Bolsonaro. From a shocking increase in deforestation (over 50%) to the approval of over a thousand new pesticides (many banned elsewhere), his administration was a disaster for Brazil but also for the world. It will take decades to reverse this damage – if at all.
And then there is the United States with an election coming up in November of this year. The choice could not be starker with Donald Trump the worst possible choice who gets everything wrong about climate change and ecological destruction, even mocking world- renowned American scientific and technological expertise. It is a willful ignorance beyond anything I could possibly imagine, and yet not surprising given his bizarre detachment from reality on most issues (the 3rd link in the references below is an excellent article on this by Bill McKibben). Big Industry would like nothing more to again have such a useful idiot in the White House based on his promise (along with a blatant request for donations) to completely reverse the important progress made over the past 4 years and in previous decades (more on that below).
In my Province – British Columbia we are facing an election in on October 19th, 2024. The Conservative Party is led by John Rustad, who has a long history of doubting climate science and the need for climate action, going so far as hinting that climate policies are a plot to control people. He has back-pedaled somewhat now saying that he believes climate change is real, but it’s not a crisis and wants to tackle crime, drugs and affordability problems first. Of course, those issues are also crucial but why back-burner environmental issues?
This also goes for the Federal Conservative party led by Federal Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre who has voted against the environment and climate nearly 400 times during his 20-year career as a Member of Parliament, according to House of Commons voting records. His campaign slogan is to “Axe The Tax” (carbon tax) but evidence based proposals to deal with climate change are minimal. The Canadian election likely will not take place until October 2025. We need to watch this one closely.
IT’S THE ECONOMY STUPID.
“It’s the economy stupid” was a phrase coined by James Carville in 1992, when he was advising Bill Clinton in his successful run for the White House. Unfortunately, there has been a preponderance of false thinking that economic growth must take precedence over environmental protection This is a false premise. The two go hand in hand.
Firstly the negatives of inaction – consider the current and rising costs of environmental disasters. For instance – the U.S. set an unwelcome record for weather and climate disasters in 2023, with 28 disasters that exceeded more than $1 billion in damage each. Hurricane Helene’s catastrophic winds and flooding has inflicted heart-breaking misery to millions along with over 100 million dollars of damage and economic loss (according to an early estimate).
The global cost of climate change damage is estimated to be between $1.7 trillion and $3.1 trillion per year by 2050. Lives are upended causing massive increases in human displacement. As of May 2024, the number of forcibly displaced people in the world has reached a staggering 120 million. The insurance industry has now been completely upended.
And now consider the economic opportunities taking action – When Joe Biden was elected in 2020, his administration embarked on one of the most significant climate agendas in history. Did the economy suffer? NO!! In fact, nearly 16 million new jobs were created, including almost 800,000 manufacturing jobs. For the environment, $370 billion is being invested to combat climate change, and to date, there’s been more than $100 billion in private investment and roughly 100,000 new jobs created in clean energy manufacturing (see reference below). Worldwide, renewable energy jobs have almost doubled in 10 years to 13.7m jobs, according to the World Economic Forum). Renewable energy, mostly from the sun and wind, seems to be reaching some sort of takeoff point. By some calculations, the world is now putting up a nuclear plant’s worth of solar panels every day.
ARE VOTERS AWARE ENOUGH?
Our societies around the world are facing so many acute issues needing the attention of those we elect. Many seem so pressing and urgent in the shorter term. However, for our future of our children and grandchildren, climate change and ecological destruction cannot be delayed or set aside. Over my 50-year career in the field of environmental science, I have witnessed some amazing leaps of progress, but I have also experienced major bouts of frustration and exasperation at setbacks – mostly due to Big Capital’s control over politics. It’s been a case of 3 steps forward, 2.5 steps back. I have 7 grandchildren (ages 9 to 20). I want their futures and the futures of generations to come, to be secure and safe. It is my hope that voters will feel likewise, take steps to be duly informed on the crises we face, and support candidates who will take the needed action. Business as usual is not an option.
REFERENCES – some of these are from certain media outlets and all provide links to more complete back up literature. Here also, are 3 books that I recommend that are highly readable and informative.
BOOK – “FIRE WEATHER – A TRUE STORY FROM A HOTTER WORLD” BY John Vaillant – Alfred A. Knopf publisher – 6/3023
BOOK ‘THE CLIMATE BOOK” – Greta Thunberg – a collections of writings by over 100 experts on all relevant aspects of the crisis. Penguin Press – 2023
BOOK – “SAVING US – A CLIMATE SCIENTIST’S HOPE AND HEALING IN A DIVIDED WORLD” – Katherine Hayhoe. Simon and Schuster, 2021.
https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2021-01-12-link-between-climate-scepticism-and-support-right-wing-populists-study
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1369118X.2020.1864005?journalCode=rics20
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-truth-about-climate-action-versus-economic-growth/
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/10/climate-loss-and-damage-cost-16-million-per-hour/
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/10/irena-renewable-energy-jobs/