The Hoodwinking of Humanity

Several regular readers of The Hames Report have noted with some concern an absence of postings since August 2015. There are good reasons for this silence, not least the fact that I have been settling into my new role as founding CEO of Centre for the Future and transferring the family from Bangkok to Melbourne.

However I have not been inactive during this period. Quite the opposite in fact. I have been engaged in the most extensive and detailed research I have personally undertaken into any topic since writing my third [The Five Literacies of Global Leadership] and fifth [Heresies] books.

Over the past weeks I have tenaciously read and re-read the recently released Paris Protocol. At 32 pages this is the official document from the UN Framework on Climate Change (the 21st of its kind) which is to be endorsed in April. A paper of that length might not sound like a particularly onerous task, but the Protocol’s convoluted prose is wearisome for anyone with an aversion to legal jargon – a category I fall into with considerable ease.

I prepared for this chore by bringing myself up to speed on the background to the agreement - reviewing official documentation stretching all the way back to the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 and the subsequent Kyoto Protocol in December 1997 - in order to compare any promises made with the actual track record of the participating parties. Believe me this made for depressing reading.

And if that wasn’t disheartening enough I then invited even more melancholy into my life by talking to some of the world’s leading climate experts about the state of the science and how the reality is rapidly outpacing current knowledge. We are rapidly moving into unknown territory and we have no maps to help us navigate the unfamiliar terrain.

In collusion with a number of friends, including those I regard as most eminently qualified to appraise the nature of the approach being taken by the international community in their efforts to tackle the issue of climate change, I then undertook a fairly rigorous examination of the UN framework. The idea was to uncover any false assumptions or flawed logics.

Without trying too hard we exposed several that, in normal circumstances, would immediately shut down a legal case. And yet in this context, remember, we are not talking about a murder, or even a massacre, but the much more serious premeditated crime of global ecocide by an organisation deliberately established to protect us from such a catastrophe.

As a consequence I now harbour numerous qualms about the UN process itself, especially the manner in which profound policy implications can be so easily watered down to comply with the parochial fads of self-serving coalitions and the bully-boy tactics of powerful individual states and their subservience to big business. I still remain highly sceptical regarding the solitary aim of reducing carbon emissions at the expense of other equally germane factors. And I question the wisdom of leaving such decisions in the hands of bureaucrats and politicians. For me the relinquishing of such civic responsibility is like handing over the keys of the asylum to a bunch of inmates who are already high on a cocktail of adrenalin, self-delusion and the din of bureaucratic echolalia.

Listening to the rational narratives of scientific trailblazers, like James Hansen for example, leaves me in no doubt we are staring unnecessarily into an abyss of uncertainty.

Even so, or perhaps because of this, I feel the need to add my own commentary about COP21 and its aftermath, and to offer an evaluation about how effectively our elected world leaders are dealing with the existential planetary emergency that is occurring on their watch.

Off-the-record leaks leading up to and concluding with the more formal announcement of the Paris communique were consistently euphoric in tone. The language used by the official media expressed real breakthroughs in attitudes and the restoration of hope. Looking at these messages in the cold light of day is an uncanny reminder of the heroic speech by Neville Chamberlain proclaiming “peace for our time” just one year before the outbreak of a world war that claimed over 60 million lives.

Admittedly there did seem to be cause for cautious optimism early on in the proceedings – at least in contrast with the debacles in almost every meeting from Qatar to Lima in addition to the utter failure to reach any kind of agreement in Copenhagen (COP15). But the Paris Protocol, too, falls far short in spite of the ebullient hype we have come to expect from these conferences. It doesn’t even begin to deal with what we actually need to do if we are to have any hope of adapting to the harsher realities of climate change. It lacks wisdom and it lacks urgency.

So, in spite of assertions to the contrary, December 12th 2015 is unlikely to go down in the chronicles of history as a great day for planet Earth. It is even less likely to be considered the day on which humanity’s self-serving ingenuity reached its peak. And it certainly did not mark a point at which we were able to express renewed optimism for a benificent future when the current civilisational model is being brought to its knees by so many life-threatening factors in a range of domains encompassing energy, health, food, politics, environment, economy, media, religion, terrorism, corruption, refugees, conflict, and nuclear misadventures.

For the time being, it seems, a gang of neo-liberal economists and ideological technocrats reign supreme in the corridors of the United Nations and its member states. Once more the voice of science is cowed by what the corporate media erroneously call strong leadership. Of course it is nothing of the kind. In the face of public outrage it is common cowardice - a deception that further dispossess future generations of their rightful inheritance, motivated by nothing more than a combination of greed, arrogance and lethargy - coupled with an appalling lack of foresight.

Meanwhile the insidious erosion of what it means to be a sentient human being, forever intensifying, is allowed to fester. Almost unnoticed, our rabid addiction to ownership and material wealth; the archaic designs and hapless effects built into our most life-critical systems; our growing lack of tolerance for, and empathy with, each other; the inexplicable alienation from society being felt by so many - young and old alike; the powerlessness of the underprivileged to escape the calculated callousness of the poverty trap; even our perverse state of ignorance concerning things that should matter to us and to our families, are all relegated to a trashcan of irrelevant intrusions.

The truth is the future of the civilisational worldview, cherished and nurtured over many centuries, hangs in the balance. That will continue as long as the moral imperative of a reinvented world-system – essentially a new narrative based upon empathy, generosity and cooperation, and featuring reduced feuding, corruption and oppression; greater social equality and tolerance; advances in governance and production; a more even-handed distribution of wealth with an explicit focus on the sharing of resources; and the transition to clean energy - are delayed or avoided because of the self-serving avarice of a privileged group, who happen to possess wealth and power that is protected by the state.

Nor do we now have the luxury of time. Scientists insist that a massive extinction of life forms essential to the viability of the human food chain, and consequently vital for our survival, is already underway. Human activities, such as the use of fossil fuels, widespread application of industrial agriculture, and overfishing of the oceans, for example, are largely responsible for this huge loss of biodiversity. We have wilfully created the conditions for our own destruction. Yet ironically we do not treat each other with any greater respect than the species we are allowing to go extinct. It seems as though the sacredness of life has been usurped by the impulse for material wealth.

In these circumstances the only words that make any sense to me are those that have the potential to puncture human hubris. For actually the only question that matters now is whether we are smart enough to survive our own success.

The UN’s favoured (and therefore we must assume well-thought-out) method for tackling climate change is to bring around 190 parties and their delegations together in concentrated bursts every few years with the overriding intention of negotiating an agreement to limit the amount of atmospheric carbon produced. This sensible tactic is aimed at reducing the heating effects of climate change that are already impacting the lives of so many communities around the world. The oft-stated aim of the UN conferences is to keep temperatures below a certain limit considered dangerous to human health.

If you believe, like me and others far more experienced who moderate thematic gatherings and open space forums in their capacity as professional facilitators, that conducting sensitive discussions of this nature, in the full glare of the world’s media, with approximately 190 nation states espousing slightly different agendas, together with their delegations of around 25,000 officially accredited representatives, is impossible, you could stop right there. The task of achieving a universally agreed, legally binding agreement, that is effective and fair, is utterly impractical given such conditions. It is actually ludicrous when you think seriously about it.

But let us assume for a moment that it is feasible….

The two measures most commonly proposed, albeit still arbitrary, are a rise in temperature of no more than 2° celsius by 2100 and a commensurate reduction of carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere to less than 350 parts per million.

The Paris Protocol explicitly assumes we can keep the rise in global temperature below 2° celsius - boldly suggesting we should aim for 1.5° celsius in order to protect island states - the most vulnerable to a subsequent rise in sea levels.

This entire proposition is built on an absurd lie. Despite the unprecedented mobilisation being shown by some nation states, the truth is that atmospheric carbon dioxide is currently around 400 parts per million. The world is also much closer to the 2° celsius mark than many experts acknowledge - with temperatures of between 2.7° celsius and 3° celsius likely by the turn of the century. Moreover continuing global carbon dioxide emissions from human activities at present rates will commit the planet to 2° celsius in less than five years from now!

The proposal to contain temperature increases to 1.5° celsius is fraudulent. It chooses to ignore the fact that we have already expended the vast majority of the carbon budget for remaining under 2° celsius. And in terms of a 1.5° celsius stabilisation we are already well overdrawn. Given these realities, far exceeding the “safe climate” thresholds set by scientists, the only way we can possibly meet such targets is to keep all reserves of coal, oil and gas in the ground - starting right now. While some developed countries could achieve that aspiration very rapidly if they really wanted to, it is unreasonable to expect developing countries to meet the same targets at a similar speed.

Sections of the Paris Protocol also imply we can manage human affairs so as to avoid global warming. This too is an outright lie. There is no avoiding what has already been set in train. Reviewing greenhouse gas emissions every five years from 2020 will make no difference. The damage is already done. Halting the use of fossil fuels may certainly help to avoid the catastrophe of a climate spinning totally out of control. But we still need to learn how to adapt to extreme weather patterns and events that are inimicable in comparison with the “goldilocks” conditions of the past few thousand years.

And so the Paris Agreement in and of itself is a shell of empty promises built on lies and distortions of the truth. COP21 will do little to avert dangerous levels of climate change without immediate action. The targets that have been set are inadequate. The financial implications have not been appropriately considered. While other important factors, like consumption - where huge amounts of airborne carbon resulting from the energy used to process and distribute food, and methane gas released from grazing livestock, are all but ignored.

Simply focusing on reducing greenhouse gas emissions in such a complex system as the Earth’s climate is akin to filling in potholes on roads with stones, ignoring the need to redesign vehicles and change motorists behaviours, in the belief that this alone will bring down the road toll. It betrays our ignorance of complexity yet highlights an inability to imagine and craft planetary solutions that are culturally, socially, financially and ethically acceptable.

If it were feasible to revisit the latter part of the nineteenth century, armed with a willingness to incorporate ecological principles into the design of large-scale industrial systems, we might still be able to prevent the problems we are facing today. But even then, with the wisdom of hindsight and unlimited access to contemporary know-how, technologies and funding, I doubt we would get any closer to banning fossil fuels or reimagining the absurdity of accepting unlimited economic growth. There are simply too many factors to be taken into account.

And yet my optimism persists. I am convinced that there are viable solutions available if only we can overcome the hubris of orthodox thinking posturing as innovation within a framework of rampant competitiveness.

Innovation is important - especially at city and regional levels. But the need for new forms of intergovernmental and cross-sectoral cooperation are key. As long as governments pander to the energy sector by keeping fossil fuels artificially cheap and profitable, it is inevitable that their use will continue to rise. So we need to eliminate subsidies that continue to prop up old smokestack industries and their toxic practices. Logic demands that a market failure of this nature can only be corrected by requiring the price of fossil fuels to account for their actual social costs. 

So, for example, a far better way to deal with emissions than the fixation on “cap and trade” policies constantly proposed by unimaginative technocrats in tax agencies around the world, would be a universally applied and policed “fee and dividend” strategy – with all monies distributed back to the community on an equal per capita basis.  This can hardly be seen as a tax if governments do not get a penny. A universally-agreed carbon price, with full revenue return and appropriate border adjustments, would internalise the social cost of carbon-based fuels, help eliminate inequities in the system, rapidly realise greater emissions reductions, stimulate a zero-carbon economy, and engage global participation. An additional advantage would be that poorer nations would benefit simply because affluent countries emit more than their individual share of carbon dioxide.

Whatever we do the planet is sure to survive. This is not about saving the planet, it is about saving ourselves. There is now no doubt we are facing a civilisational emergency. And we do need to take immediate action. But current institutional arrangements, as exemplified by the Paris negotiations, are far too lethargic. The UN’s game of nation-state negotiations is trapped in a no-win torpor of its own invention, a gravitational-like force from which it cannot possibly escape.

World leaders and their acolytes who met in Paris are not thinking rationally. And they are certainly not learning. They do not approach the problems from higher levels of consciousness of what will or will not work. They are out of touch and out of their depth. They cannot admit to the futility of trying to reach an agreement with such large numbers of representatives without the inevitable oversimplification that must occur. They do not access the wisdom of systems designers or of experts in transformational dialogue, believing that only they know best. As a consequence their conversations are restricted to the prosaic - a string of worthless and fake promises. They are certainly not taking meaningful and immediate action to avert dangerous levels of climate change. Humanity is being hoodwinked. This is deception on a massive scale.

We need to call a halt to this circus. The UN has proved they cannot handle the complex crisis of climate change. It is highly likely that all eyes will now turn to China for leadership for their situation is already untenable. The population is choking on escalating levels of pollution, the rivers are poisoned, and the cost to human life is incalculable. Fortunately, in this instance at least, China does not need to wait for everyone to agree - an example where the lack of democracy is undoubtedly an advantage.

In China and elsewhere around the world we have reached the point of needing to deploy all forms of energy that do not entail the release of carbon. This must include nuclear energy, which is far safer to human health than coal, oil and gas in spite of the myths and fear-mongering being perpetuated by the fossil-fuel industry. At the same time we need to let go of the costly and unproven fantasies of large scale carbon capture and sequestration.

Further delays, already built in to the Paris Agreement, will simply consign the next generation to a world in which climate refugees number in the hundreds of millions, food stocks and drinking water are in short supply, large tracts of land including many coastal cities are uninhabitable, and life as we know it is grim. Is that what we really want? No?

Then why do we persist in allowing our so-called leaders to repeat the mistakes of the past, all the while believing they can achieve different results? That, as we all know, is a sign of insanity. Is our society really that gullible? I think not. Which is why we so urgently need a mindful uprising of those with the capacity to think differently, acting in purposeful collaboration, with a determination to reinvent a worldview that is no longer viable for any but a small minority of people.