“Figueres is on record saying
democracy is a poor political system for fighting global warming. Communist
China, she says, is the best model. This is not about facts or logic. It’s
about a new world order under the control of the UN. It is opposed to capitalism
and freedom and has made environmental catastrophism a household topic to
achieve its objective.” (Maurice
Newman, The UN is using climate change as a tool not an issue’, The Australian May 8 2015)*
I find the above quote - from an opinion piece by Australian Prime
Minister Tony Abbott’s chief business adviser Maurice Newman (both depicted above) – actually rather
encouraging in its implication that global warming is a communist plot against
the free capitalist world (Newman is, of course, merely one of the most recent
and most politically high-profile figures to express this viewpoint which has
been a staple of global warming deniers for eons, particularly those in the
US).
My encouragement stems from the fact
that Newman doesn’t bring up the standard denialist canard about the scientific
evidence for global warming being based upon ‘junk science’ – but instead jumps
straight into arguing against the science on ideological grounds of nationalism
and capitalism. In this respect Newman is perhaps indicative of an overall
shift in paradigms of global warming denial. Where these arguments used to be
based on appeals to both ‘hearts and minds’ – e.g. the Mann hockey stick graph
of global temperature rises was based on flawed data and biased interpretation
(mind) and Al Gore is a liberal seditionary who wants to undermine America’s
god-given freedoms by imposing authoritarian control over people’s lives under
the pretext of environmental legislation (heart) – they now increasingly appear
to be appeals based squarely in the latter camp.
A combination of increasingly
comprehensive multi-disciplinary scientific reports on global warming (such as
the IPCC’s annual efforts) and – crucially – substantial changes to weather
patterns that locals can actually experience, usually in an adverse fashion
(e.g. yearly droughts and increased flooding) appear to have tilted the popular
perception of global warming towards begrudging acceptance of the science (the
recent encyclical by Pope Francis advocating environmentalism as a core tent of
Catholicism is a potent signifier of such a shift).
While scientific-based denial will
still be around for a long time yet (to, unfortunately, use another Oz-based
example, witness professional contrarian Bjorn
Lomborg being welcomed to spread the gospel of fossil fuel-based freedom by
the Abbott government) the overall shift in denialist tack to emotive arguments
rooted in nationalism bodes well for science. When the ideological arguments put
forwards by the likes of Newman are this hokey and risible – a rehash of Cold
War anti-Communist paranoia – then it seems more likely that the majority of
the populace will accept the scientific consensus rather than ideologically-based
denial. And in the early 21st
century – in which China is rapidly surpassing the USA as the cornerstone of
the global capitalist economic system – does anyone outside of aging
fundamentalist right-wingers really think the Chinese have an agenda to implement a Communist takeover of the world?
*Note: I initially was able to read Newman’s
opinion piece through the Australian
website, but when I returned to link to it for this post it was classified as
subscriber only. So a representative news item (from the Sydney Morning Herald) will have to serve as a documentary
substitute of the contemporary debate surrounding Newman’s statements.
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