Must I Save String To Save The Planet?

Half a century ago, the French writer Bernard Frank devised a novel proof of God’s existence, the proof by Sartre: Jean-Paul Sartre denies the existence of God; Sartre is always wrong; therefore God exists.

As John Murdock points out, many conservatives apply a similar style of reasoning to the global warming issue. Al Gore believes in anthropogenic global warming, Gore has to be wrong, therefore I don’t have to ride to work on a bike.

Most conservatives divide between two alternative positions on AGW:

• AGW does not exist. Global warming, if it exists at all, is not human made, so there is not much we can do about it.
• AGW does exist and calls for reasonable, rational measures in order to prevent it if possible or deal with it if not.

Finding some common ground between those two positions does not seem too complicated.

To start with, some policies can be justified both by global warming and other considerations. Nuclear power is carbon-free and favors energy independence. An economically rational level of energy saving policies can also make sense in times of high oil tariffs, or in order to prepare for such times. Then, a long term “decarbonization” may be happening anyway, as technologies more efficient than fossil fuels are developed, so that carbon emissions will become marginal in a few decades. Pushing such technologies with public money can make some sense in a strategic or a long-term economic perspective.

Then, if anthropogenic climate change turns out to be very much real and dangerous, it remains reasonable to bet on humans’ capacity to adapt, which they will be in a better position to do if they haven’t been stripped of their wealth by costly and ineffective climate control policies. And if we definitely cannot resist the urge to do something right now, at least let us have a look at the reasonable measures advocated by people such as Bjorn Lomborg or, in France, Christian Gerondeau, rather than responding to climate change with bizarre policies such as those currently implemented in Europe. Let’s be rational. That is what conservatives are supposed to do.

Which brings us to a second issue, a dividing line between conservatives and non-conservatives that is more serious than the debate over AGW itself: the irrationality of the environmentalist demands for lifestyle-changing policies.

It is difficult to look at the lifestyle-changing campaign currently going on in Europe and find it perfectly normal. I don’t know whether the climate may be influenced by policies such as a massive transition from coal plants to nuclear, for instance, but I do know that asking people to behave as eco-conscious zealots (not use the elevator, turn off the lights when leaving a room for a minute, riding a bike instead of using a car, shut down computers at night, print drafts on already printed paper and so on) will not change anything. The numbers are just too small, and such behaviors will bring unintended consequences. That leaves aside other policies of doubtful value, such as spending billions of euros to maintain railway lines used by empty trains or build new ones passing through the Alps (like the Lyon-Turin future TGV line), or subsidize wind turbines or solar plants. These policies are just ineffective. But the lifestyle-changing policies are more than that: they are plain perverse. Waste sorting has become mandatory in most places in France (nothing to do with global warming, by the way) and it is popular, even though its usefulness is doubtful, because it forces people to get involved. Every commercial for any company whose business is remotely related to energy contains a line about saving the planet (usually said in a kid’s voice). There was a paragraph about the environment in a computer mouse’s notice that I recently bought. In fact, there is something about the environment in virtually every notice, commercial or public announcement of any sort. The environment has become an obsession and people seem somehow happy to have a cause, a reason to mobilize and get together.

This is a fantastic subject for sociologists, but maybe conservatives should focus on what they are generally supposed to d: keep peoples’ heads cool and avoid that sort of collectivist mobilization campaign that Hannah Arendt described as one pillar of totalitarian systems. Yes, the comparison is far-fetched, but wait until your own kids lecture you about your bad eco-behavior.

The third issue has to do with the status of science.

The late Michael Crichton, often described as a “skeptic”, was not skeptical about the existence of anthropogenic climate change (though he was about its supposed impact). His skepticism had more to do with the method. His point was that science, which is supposed to remain as close to objectivity as possible, has been used to score political or financial gains to such an extent that scientific research in general might be threatened.

In order to remain valid, scientific research uses complex procedures in order to avoid being interfered with by financial interests, ideological preferences, personal rivalries or any other extra-scientific factor. But that is hardly compatible with science-based lobbying or the introduction of enormously complex scientific controversies in the public debate through lobbying, advertisement, and advocacy campaigns and the search for consensus instead of experimental validation. But that is precisely what has been going on with global warming, and so a scientific debate has turned into a political one. Many scientists and many scientific institutions have taken sides and are now involved in the final outcome – if ever there is one. And so it has become more and more difficult to trust them, or at least to trust the various “studies” which seem to pop up every day in the scientific section of Google News. Science might find itself under suspicion. If you don’t usually trust the UN and its various branches, can you trust the IPCC? And if you don’t trust the IPCC, can you trust the thousands of scientists it employs? And if you don’t trust them, can you trust science in general?

Now, in the current context, how could a reasonably well-educated non-scientist make a personal judgment on that sort of issue? And what can a political leader do, even assuming he only wants to make the best decision for his country?

So maybe conservatives could try to find some way to put science back on track. For instance, maybe a national agency could be better trusted to find out about global warming than a UN agency. Maybe such an agency could use rules of confidentiality, a bit like intelligence agencies do, but with a different purpose. Indeed, scientific research does not necessarily have to be kept secret, but its publicity, on certain issues, could respond to a stricter timing. For instance, some studies might need to be kept confidential as long as they have not been sufficiently validated, while summaries could be written in a more rigorous way, so that the complexity of the subject would not be lost in the political debate, or at least not immediately.

But these are just random suggestions. The point is that trust in science might be harmed by campaigns such as the one on anthropogenic global warming, and conservatives might want to do something about it.