Today is Good Friday, a day well suited for thoughts and reflections, whether one has any religious beliefs or not. In our 24/7 society we often seem to lack the time to just stop, sit down and think, without immediately relaying our mental position via our social media networks. So even if Good Friday was a very boring day in my youth, we could use slow days to be able to catch up with ourselves.
This week any reflection will and must start with what happened in Brussels. We need to lament the lives senselessly lost, when once again men whose minds have been perverted commit an act of “heroism” by killing innocent people. There is no excuse of any sort for these killings. That said, we still need to understand roots of terror to be able to combat it, as is well laid out in this comment.
If our answer to the terrorist is only to fortify our societies, close our borders and arm ourselves with ever more security we will be loosing in the long run. If we look with even more suspicion at our neighbours and especially at the refugees that are seeking to escape from precisely the same kind or terror in Afghanistan or Syria, we will increase the kind of tensions and conflicts that the terrorist seek. Of course we become frightened by the terror attacks, but we must not let this feeling take over our ability to think and act. But as Nick Kristof writes in the NY Times the basic problem is this: "The human brain evolved so that we systematically misjudge risks and how to respond to them."
The history of terror also shows that we are very short sighted and forget to look at even recent history. This graph from the Global Terrorism Index 2015 shows a timeline of terrorism. Most of the terror strikes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Nigeria, but these events seldom creates big headlines in our media. It is also clear that two events stand out, the US invasion in Iraq back in 2003 and the start of the Syrian civil war. Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi dictator was a terrible oppressor, especially to the Kurds, but there was no Al Queda or ISIS in Iraq before the US invasion. The invasion was based on false premises and lies and instead created a brewing ground for terrorism. When the worst drought in 900 years hit Syria this and an oppressive regime set a match to the tinder box as the rest of the world was just looking on wringing its collective hands.
So now we have a situation that must be dealt with. But if we allow terrorism, conflicts and threats of war to consume all of our attention span, we will not be able to change perspective and see other and even larger threats on the not so far horizon. Terrorism kills hundreds and thousands of people every year and causes terrible harm, but it is still unlikely to bring down our societies - if we don’t let it by failing to see what is coming at us. As Nick Kristof states, we must not become consumed by the wrong problems.
Climate change is a far bigger threat than most people are yet aware. The last few weeks have been another avalanche of bad news. It has been a record warm start of the year, to the extent that even seasoned climate scientist have been grasping for words to describe it. “Stunning,” “wow,” “shocker,” “bombshell,” “astronomical,” “insane,”“unprecedented”– these are some of the words climate scientists have used to describe the record-shattering global surface temperatures in February 2016. And yet this information has largely failed to register with media or penetrate into the political and public debate. It is as if the Paris deal in December had magically translated into action, while in reality not very much has happened.
Granted, there are positive sign, with some estimations indicate that carbon emissions are starting to level off, helped among other things by a marked shift in the Chinese use of coal. And we have a rapid and very promising increase in low cost solar energy. In 2015, renewables supplied 10% of global electricity. This is very good but it is just not going at the speed necessary, since 2015 showed the largest ever increase in CO2 concentration.
There is a real risk that dangerous climate change will occur within decades, far quicker than earlier projections and that the consequences will be dire. The research behind this statement was just published but if you don’t want to read the 50 page paper, I dare you to look at the video accompanying this publication. Here the lead author James Hansen describes what’s at stake:
To me, "the potential loss of all coastal cities within this century” is not a message that I can just let pass.
As I have written before, there are very few political leaders to be found that dare to deal with the true impact of climate change. Most to the attention span is given to demagogues like Donald Trump, a man that spews hatred and resentment with the rhetorical skill of another politician with bad haircut, a man that was voted into office some 80 years ago. Trump talks about securing borders and building fences but does not seem to understand the implications of climate change. He can’t even be bothered to get the talking points right. "He isn’t just a climate know-nothing, he’s a climate know-less-than-nothing who doesn’t even know what he doesn’t know."
If we elect “leaders” like Trump or Le Pen in France to deal with a world of global warming and an aggressive Putin, we are lost. So what can we do to really change direction? Understand the problem and the fact that we are way beyond easy solution, a better future is possible but it will need adjustments of our way of life that no politician dare yet talk about. One scientist who has been very outspoken on the kind of change needed is Kevin Anderson from the Tyndall Institute. In a recent interview he gave some both blunt and promising answers. As an engineer himself, he says that engineering and innovation is essential for the change needed but but it will not solve the problem quickly enough, there is no way we can reconstruct our energy system in a few years. The fossil fuels need to stay in the ground and that can only be achieved if the demand and use is radically decreased.
And there is a possibility for change that also involves bringing in equity in the solution. Climate impact in the form of emissions and ecological footprint is not equally distributed. We often talk about the role of different countries, but distribution of wealth and carbon emissions is uneven also within countries. If the richest 10% of the world would adopt the meagre lifestyle of an average European (i.e. still on top of the world) that would mean a 30 % reduction of global carbon emissions. That would by us the time necessary to rebuild the energy system.
It can be done, if we are serious about caring for poor people in the present world and giving future generations a chance to inherit a liveable world. But it can not be done if just continue business as usual and defend our lack of action because we feel entitled to a few shopping trips to Paris or London every year. If that is the position we really want to defend let us be clear about it. But If we and our political leaders fail to translate understanding the problem to actions, we might all be seen as complicit terrorists by future historians.
This is not a path we need to follow. It is a choice.
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