Joss Garman, Joss Garman FRSA (born 1985), is a Greenpeace activist and co-founder of Plane Stupid
''Hardliners around the English-speaking world who ignore the evidence for global warming will pay a heavy political price''
A generation of young conservative politicians and journalists across the English-speaking world have put down a historic bet that could decimate their movement.
From the Senate chamber in Canberra, Australia, to the editorial offices of The Spectator in London, an entire class of right-wing leaders has hitched its wagon to an outlandish conspiracy theory without seemingly appreciating the profound implications their move will have not just for the planet, but also for the viability of their political project.
The conspiracy theory in question, which has been given unparalleled publicity ahead of the Copenhagen summit, goes like this: several thousand leading scientists, seeking to secure research funding, have corrupted global temperature data to stay in the pay of governments bent upon extorting higher taxes through the dissemination of scare stories about so-called global warming. Climate change is a hoax propagated by greedy academics and greens, better described as "the new reds".
Clearly this theory is undiluted lunacy, but its adoption by great swathes of the right is the most significant strategic blunder by a political movement in my lifetime. The great debates of the last century - be they over a woman's right to choose or whether the US should have fought on in Vietnam - have never, and likely will never, be entirely resolved. And even if they were, the public was never likely to exact a catastrophic and permanent political price from the losing side.
But with climate change things are very different, presenting a grave danger to the electoral success of right-wing politics this century. Because man-made climate change is not some abstract political theory but a scientific prediction that will be proven beyond doubt in the years ahead in the form of climate impacts.
The new decade will likely see record global temperatures, severe - possibly terminal - depletion of Arctic summer sea ice, huge loss of mass from glaciers, and wildfire epidemics. Taken collectively, these climate signals will be among the most important events in human history. In the decade following, any remaining climate deniers will surely lose their tenuous hold on the levers of influence because the public will witness first hand profound changes to our world. We'll want somebody to blame - we always do. http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/12/06-2
From the Senate chamber in Canberra, Australia, to the editorial offices of The Spectator in London, an entire class of right-wing leaders has hitched its wagon to an outlandish conspiracy theory without seemingly appreciating the profound implications their move will have not just for the planet, but also for the viability of their political project.
The conspiracy theory in question, which has been given unparalleled publicity ahead of the Copenhagen summit, goes like this: several thousand leading scientists, seeking to secure research funding, have corrupted global temperature data to stay in the pay of governments bent upon extorting higher taxes through the dissemination of scare stories about so-called global warming. Climate change is a hoax propagated by greedy academics and greens, better described as "the new reds".
Clearly this theory is undiluted lunacy, but its adoption by great swathes of the right is the most significant strategic blunder by a political movement in my lifetime. The great debates of the last century - be they over a woman's right to choose or whether the US should have fought on in Vietnam - have never, and likely will never, be entirely resolved. And even if they were, the public was never likely to exact a catastrophic and permanent political price from the losing side.
But with climate change things are very different, presenting a grave danger to the electoral success of right-wing politics this century. Because man-made climate change is not some abstract political theory but a scientific prediction that will be proven beyond doubt in the years ahead in the form of climate impacts.
The new decade will likely see record global temperatures, severe - possibly terminal - depletion of Arctic summer sea ice, huge loss of mass from glaciers, and wildfire epidemics. Taken collectively, these climate signals will be among the most important events in human history. In the decade following, any remaining climate deniers will surely lose their tenuous hold on the levers of influence because the public will witness first hand profound changes to our world. We'll want somebody to blame - we always do. http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/12/06-2
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