A Thinking Reed

Radicalism vs. gradualism on responding to climate change

Written by

Lee M.

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This is where I, as a layman, get lost. Bill McKibben and others argue that we’re in the middle of a catastrophe in the making and that only radical changes in our way of life can mitigate the disaster.

Meanwhile, Jonathan Rauch admits that climate change is a real and harmful phenomenon, but argues that gradualism is the only workable solution and that we should focus on minimizing the most serious harms at the margins. “No rethinking of capitalism is required.”

I just don’t have a decent enough grasp of the science to adjudicate between these two positions.

Comments

5 responses to “Radicalism vs. gradualism on responding to climate change”

  1. Helmut

    Well, that is the only serious debate on policy prescriptions now. Forget the debate about whether or not climate change is anthropogenic. That’s dead among anyone serious about it.

    Gradualism requires taking a low-end view of the consequences as a base-line from which to think about policy, while the radical view takes up the high-end consequences. Gradualism tends to extend to ourselves, if we’re not South Pacific islanders or others who will be seriously affected in the short term. Radicalism tends to take others’ interests into account.

    The question becomes whether or not, living in a place such as the US, which has contributed and continues to contribute far more than their share of emissions and thus far more of their share of the problem, the ethical problem is simply self-preservation or the taking up of responsibility for the problem in the first place. If the ethical dimensions of the problem have any play at all, they don’t stop at national boundaries, especially not when you’re the responsible party. The feasibility issues are overplayed, but they do entail a fairly radical change in the American lifestyle and differently articulated ideas of the future of development and “economic growth” for middle-income countries. Gradualism is a response to feasibility issues, not the ethical responsibility for emissions built into economies such as those of the US, China, Russia, etc, but by far the US. Gradualists are prepared o sacrifice the livelihoods of certain people for the short-term luxuries of others and call this “feasibility.”

    That’s basically the isue.

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  2. Consumatopia

    I can’t help but think that Rauch is arguing against a strawman–as though environmentalists are insisting on implementing a Maoist Five-Year Plan to Destroy All Carbon in the Universe. Rauch calls for a carbon tax. Well, join the club, that’s what most environmentalists are calling for.

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  3. Michael Westmoreland-White

    I’m in the middle. I think we need some semi-large adjustments, but I am not convinced that we need as large adjustments as McKibbens argues.

    I argue for a cap and trade policy (as long as one uses strong caps, not just “goals”) because this has worked with other things: We used to greatly reduce acid rain and CFC emissions. If one just caps, there is no incentive to go beyond the cap. But if one caps and trades, one encourages innovation with making money–and some companies will move considerably below cap limits quicker than imagined. Again, this is how it worked well with CFCs and with reduction of sulfur dioxides that cause acid rain. In the latter, we passed targets years ahead of time because of the cap and trade incentives.

    BUT, this only works if the caps are significantly large and are firm with strict government enforcement. Notice how this is a mixed-market approach. Government sets the rules and lets the market figure out the best ways to achieve that.

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  4. gaius sempronius gracchus

    We see blatantly interested propaganda in the press all the time denying the urgency of the matter, some of it aimed at keeping the world safe for the oil and auto industries and some of it aimed simply at opposing growth of regulation of the economy in any shape or form.

    Is gradualism the fallback position of people who, until yesterday, absurdly and mendaciously defended total denial?

    And, by the way, why have we let ourselves be drawn into discussing the crisis of the environment as if, when discussing problem X, it is the only problem and then, when discussing problem Y, well, it too is the only problem?

    To global warming add fished-out and polluted oceans and disappearing rain forests and the crunch to come soon when there is no more arable land to bring under cultivation, just for starters.

    The underlying problem making all others so much worse is population. We are already far too many.

    It may simply not be politically possible to get people to take on the sacrifices needed to bring ourselves under control and into a sustainable relationship with the planet, even supposing that could be done with a way of life that is not as economically impoverished as, say, hunting and food-gathering.

    And it may even be that, given some workable way of doing that, people alive today would not be willing, and would prefer to avoid the necessary personal sacrifices even at the known cost of the eventual ruin of all humanity and of the Earth.

    Apres moi, le deluge.

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  5. CPA

    Gaius, you write:

    “We see blatantly interested propaganda in the press all the time denying the urgency of the matter, some of it aimed at keeping the world safe for the oil and auto industries and some of it aimed simply at opposing growth of regulation of the economy in any shape or form.”

    and you also write

    “It may simply not be politically possible to get people to take on the sacrifices needed to bring ourselves under control and into a sustainable relationship with the planet, even supposing that could be done with a way of life that is not as economically impoverished as, say, hunting and food-gathering.

    And it may even be that, given some workable way of doing that, people alive today would not be willing, and would prefer to avoid the necessary personal sacrifices even at the known cost of the eventual ruin of all humanity and of the Earth.”

    I see a contradiction here. If indeed people will have to sacrifice, etc., doesn’t that offer a reason for the press’s “blatantly interested propaganda” other than the auto industry and the oil industry and an unregulated economy. In other words, maybe it is not JUST the auto and oil industries that would be threatened by radical measures that would really stop carbon emissions in the near future, but the living standards of billions of people. And maybe, just maybe, that’s actually what’s motivating people who want to minimize the problem. (Crazy idea, I know, attributing non-evil motivations to your policy opponents.)

    For my own part, I’d like to see a stiff carbon tax, offset by reduction in the income tax so as to be revenue and progressivity neutral. But I don’t think that will stop global warming, only slow it down.

    Some degree of global warming is something we’re just going to have to learn to live with.

    And no I don’t think it threatens the ruin of all humanity and the earth. (Temperatures and carbon levels in the Cretaceous were way above any projection of global warming and the earth survived the Cretaceous.)

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