Though Cowards Flinch

Paul Sagar has an article up at his place discussing whether or not climate change denialists are duplicitous or simply stupid. I share his continuing shock that so many people – who are, on the surface, well educated – are prepared to deny the reality of anthropogenic global warming. It is surprising to me as to many others that these people are not simply being controversialists but genuinely believe what they say.

Anyone familiar with the global warming ‘controversy’ will know the form. The science academies of every single industrialised nation have issued statements supporting the idea of AGW. Sixteen of them have issued further statements defending the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). All of the research was submitted to peer review, normal scientific practice, and has not been found wanting.

A very small minority of scientists disagree, though many of these have nothing to do with climate-change disciplines. Vociferous members of the commentariat also disagree – no one is unfamiliar with Melanie Phillips for whom “political correctness” is a dangerous project of the Left to throw back the Christian dominance of the UK (!) and for whom President Obama may as well be a Muslim insurgent.

Listening to the radio this morning, however, I was struck by the terms in which US Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK) discussed man-made global warming. He called it a “Hollywood Hoax”. Science to one side, and Unity has done a sterling job of attempting to talk through that, the ideology inherent to Inhofe’s remarks should be starkly visible. It posits an image of the ‘average person’ versus the elite.

Inhofe uses such devices regularly:

“In short, it is a direct threat America’s way of life.  If we cannot fly to remote locations, and if few automobiles are capable of pulling boats, jet skies, and campers, and if RVs become a thing of the past as environmentalists would like, then minor climate fluctuations will have little impact on recreation because Americans will not have the means to recreate.”

Again, the image is conjured of a threat to the ‘way of life’ of normal Americans, while hated special interest groups run amok in Washington DC, depriving Americans of their god-given right to influence their representatives. The irony, of course, is that regardless of the rights or wrongs of the science, the sentiment that Inhofe taps each and every time he opens his mouth is probably justified.

Of course Inhofe expresses it in terms of conspiracy, rather than inequalities of power and access created by capitalism. Just listening to him on the US news circuit on the subject of the Copenhagen agreement, “conspiracy” just shrieks from every word. The idea of a shadowy “them” excuses the need to investigate further into the shape and processes of the system which we live in, contibute to and partake of.

This angle is lent weight by massive funding from corporate lobbies to many of its proponents, including Senator Inhofe. It is also lent weight because the average US citizen does feel disenfranchised from their ‘democratic’ government. Most obviously, there are those who connect most with their Christian cultural-religious identity and feel that ‘secularism’ aims to alienate this approach from the government.

Questions of morality are easily fitted in, with immorality becoming a property of “them”, e.g. liberals in favour of abortion rights or gender and sexual equality. This neatly links in to Inhofe’s claim that AGW is a “Hollywood hoax”. Hollywood, naturally, has absolutely nothing to do with climate science. Prominent scientists do not, as far as I have ever seen, patronize the clubs and malls of the Sunset Strip.

The link is the immorality of each. The Hollywood “them” who are corrupting your children through excessive violence and pornography. The activist, lobbyist and scientist “them” who are corrupting your democracy and removing your right to have a say. Americans have to fight hard in order to have a say and that makes this equation believable.

It is climate change activists who have been winning that fight honestly, since they don’t have corporate muscle on their side, but it’s the oldest rhetorical trick in the book to call black, white and white, black and build one’s pile of assumptions from there. This is what Inhofe has done.

It’s easy to retaliate with accusations of duplicity, but the tragedy is that Inhofe probably believes himself. One of the key ‘national’ narratives of the USA is industry and enterprise, pulling oneself up by your bootstraps. Senator Inhofe did just that, building up his own business and, as a businessman, resenting things like federal regulation, unions and the liberals who support them. Which segues nicely to his religious identity.

Similarly not all of these people attacking climate change can be stupid. Ill-informed, sure. The key, however, is in what people and institutions they have chosen to invest with authority and trust. I trust scientists to be honest with their findings, and the scientific system to be rigorous in pointing out problems with the theory and practical evidence, whether it’s on climate change or the rightful classification of illegal drugs.

Other people may not. An inadequate vocabulary and conceptual universe to get to the core of why it is permissible to distrust the scientific elite, or a class position that renders these things indigestible, results in conspiracy theories. We can combat this with proper argumentation, sure, but we also need to approach the issue from a class viewpoint. We need to restore trust and we can do that by winning people over through rebuilding the institutions that allow them to control government, and corporations.

Like taxes and unions.

But try selling that one to Jim Inhofe.