I've been trying to thoroughly research climate change and rising sea levels. My objective has been to be thorough and look at both sides of the issue. Unfortunately there is war of “manufactured narratives” that makes it impossible for the layman to form an objective opinion of climate change (or possibly any issue). We all have our personal beliefs and prejudices, and manufactured narratives, opinions, and filtered and fake news are everywhere to create or bolster an opinion we already have. Either that or we end up totally confused, which is probably what is intended.
A typical tactic is to accuse the other side of creating a manufactured narrative (intentionally reusing the post-modernist use of the word). Here are two experts, Bill Cunningham, syndicated talk show host out of Cincinnati, and Monica Crowley, Fox news contributor, on the Sean Hannity Fox news show weighing in on climate change.
This video is included with an article posted on Media Matters for America.[1]
Here is the December 5, 2016 Fox show printed transcript.
If I understand correctly, Bill and Monica are saying that climate change is a crisis cooked up by the liberals, or secular progressives, to get rid of God and take money from the wealthy and give to the poor. It's Robin Hood on a massive scale but without Friar Tuck.
HANNITY: If it snows, it’s global warming. If it doesn’t snow, global warming. If there’s an earthquake, quake, global warming. If there’s not one, global warming. It doesn’t matter, they blame everything, but in the 1970s, Monica Crowley, they were saying in Time Magazine the next ice age is coming. So, we go from ice age, to global warming, now to climate change, so no matter what the climate is, they’ve got an excuse.
MONICA CROWLEY: Well, of course, because what this is for the left, and this has been the case now, since they started to make this argument three decades ago plus, is a massive wealth redistribution scheme. It’s also a critical part of secular progressivism where they turn the environment into god.
HANNITY: How does this —
CROWLEY So, it’s a way of separating Americans and westerners from god and organized religion, and it’s also a wealth redistribution scheme.
HANNITY: But isn’t it predicated — Let me ask you this. Isn’t it predicated on the belief that we’re raping and pillaging the planet for profit and if we cut down a tree to build a house, somehow somebody is going to make a profit?
CROWLEY: Yeah, but again, this is part of the secular progressive agenda, and has been for a long time. It does turn the Earth into God and replaces God. But more importantly, Sean, as I tried to say, it’s about taking wealth from wealthy individuals in the western world and wealthy countries and transferring that wealth to the third world, and elsewhere, according to how the global elites see fit. This is nothing to do with the climate. This is nothing to do with the environment.
I'd like to do better than Hrafnkell Haraldsson's commentary because I've heard these things said before. But my initial reaction to the claim about turning the environment into God is that even though the environment is not God, it's one of God's creations. Either we are good stewards and take care of the earth, or someday the earth won't take care of us. We are dependent on what the earth provides, even if the dependency is not as clear as it once was with the industrial production of food and goods.
On the other hand, the environment must be God if there is an inexhaustible supply of blue-fin tuna. That may be what the sailors thought when they ate all the dodos on Mauritius to extinction (they were delicious). If Bill and Monica are right that the earth is not God, it must have limits and we, about seven and a half billion of us in 2016, may be discovering earth's limits.
Bill and Monica's story unfortunately doesn't end there. It's true that there are various groups advocating wealth redistribution because, as they see it, climate change is linked to economic inequality. From two articles by Dario Kenner, published here and here:
Piketty and Chancel estimate that the country where the people making up the richest 1% have the highest carbon footprints per person is in the United States. They estimate that in 2013 the average emissions per person of the richest 1% (3.2 million people) was around 318 tonnes of CO2e. In comparison the average emissions per person of the poorest 10% (around 31 million people) was around 3.6 tonnes of CO2e.
Inequality and overconsumption need to be dealt with together because they are so interconnected [...]
Extreme inequality highlights that different people consume differently and so need to be targeted differently. We need more detailed information on full ecological footprint of the richest people (and other groups) to know how to target them.
Trying to reduce the ecological footprint of the richest at a time of extreme inequality is going to be very difficult so this needs to be factored into policies that target them otherwise they might not work.
This thinking can also be linked to the United Nations. Apparently former United Nations climate official Ottmar Edenhofer did indeed say something like, "But one must say clearly: We distribute the climate policy de facto the world's wealth."
I'm skeptical about attempting to transfer wealth from wealthy to poor countries. Where will the money go exactly, who will manage it, and can the poor become wealthier without increasing their carbon footprint? What if the money ended up in the hands of the third-world leaders, many of them dictators, who put it in their own pockets? While I understand the motivation, taxation can't fix every problem. It would be far wiser to bring the case for doing something about climate change directly to wealthy people and give them a stake in the solution if they want one. And after 30 years, the wealth transfer project is a failure, according to Oxfam and this chart of the share of global wealth from Wikipedia:
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Bill and Monica also have a point that climate change has been a slow moving train. Catastrophic predictions have so far fallen short (ignoring weather anomalies like Hurricane Sandy which may or may not be linked). Nasa's measurements of sea-level rise is about 3.4 +/- 0.4 millimeters per year. This is not very much per year but after 30 years we can at last see it. The train may be arriving at the station.
“When you see fish swimming on your road, you’ve got major problems,” says Dave Schulte, a marine biologist with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
There is more. Some of the sea-level rise may be due to ground water extraction. According to an article on the skeptical site, the SPPI blog, there is land "subsidence, at 1.1-4.8 mm/yr – for an average rate of 11 inches per century, on top of the 4.4 in. per century in isostatic subsidence, and compared to the average sea level rise of 7 in. a century [...] The solution requires reducing groundwater removal in these coastal areas." Even if you agree with this assessment, disputed here but not exactly here, the proposed solution may not be feasible everywhere. A wealthy country like the United States can afford to build pipelines to bring water inland to the coast. Other places, not only poorer ones, may be restricted by the geology of the terrain. On islands and coastal areas around the world growing populations demanding more potable water will be a problem.
References
- Potential Trump Press Secretary Calls Climate Change A “Wealth Redistribution Scheme” To “Turn The Earth Into God”
MEDIA MATTERS STAFF
PUBLISHED 12/05/16 11:17 PM EST
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