Global Warming | Climate Change

The politicisation of the climate debate

Why global warming is not as divisive as it seems

Published April 2023 | Revised Nov 2023

Our politics like other aspects of society is full of the wise, the smart, the cunning, egotistical, opportunistic and the absolutely ineffective politicians. It has always been and may therefore always be. It is a part of the democratic system of governance that most of us have embraced. The truth is, these archetypes exist in authoritarian, monarchical and other systems of government, so it is not a deficiency native to democracy.

It is a part of the human condition. A bell curve that binds our wisest people and the absolute nonentities under the same roof. We know them, and we might have been one of them at points in our lives, whether we choose to admit it or not. We all move through the same continuum stretching from altruistic service to mankind on one end to the egotistical dedication to our self-interests at the other end. So, no finger pointing here, just showcasing the human condition.

Our wisest leaders know that global warming is not a partisan issue, the not so wise ones seek to use it to advance a career they would otherwise not have had but for our sloppiness. It is time we take global warming off the list of things that divide us. Here’s why.

Global warming will affect us all

Sea level rises will decimate our coastal towns and push us further inland. Mortgage brokers and insurance companies are less than a decade away from making climate change impact a central part of their assessment for home values. So, the poor will lose their villages and livestock, and the rich will see the value of their beach homes and other assets decimated.

Global warming is an equal opportunities destroyer that will mete out its destructive impacts across society irrespective of age, gender, religion, political affiliations, etc. Its beef is with our climate, and we will get trampled. People on both sides of the political aisles will be affected severely. Gen X, Y, Z ? will all be affected. Crop yields, transportation, defense, medicine, societal cohesion etc are in its firing line.

The politicisation is opportunistic

I once asked a friend to name a single politician with caustic opinions on climate change who wasn’t running for office, and he struggled. You could probably name many and that is fine too. The point here is that politicians, especially those on the ineffective end of the spectrum, seek out waves of public opinion to ride to victory. And they do it because they have absolutely nothing else to offer society.

They prey on the fact that we have other priorities in life and that checking the veracity of every syllable of what they tell us is not the best use of our time. The use data out of context, discredit reputable institutions and proven ideas and then wear us down with wave after wave of drama and attention overload. Many of us just tune-out or give in. They harvest those that give-in as their base and simply disregard the rest.

The division is inflated

The majority of people across the globe practice basic thinking and decision-making processes that are at odds with what the state of discourse around global warming suggests. We trust our schools and send our children there. We trust our doctors and consult with them. Even big pharma gets our patronage, and our homes are full of medications that we all use. And the covid vaccines ended up in billions of arms despite the uproar that debates around it generated.

The overwhelming majority of us know how to make good decisions, and we do it every day. But our technology today seems to amplify the relatively few unwise decisions that sections of the population make. Our news is full of carefully curated reports of the unwise decisions that people make day in day out. So, the criminally minded gets the front page and the hero nurse, inspirational teacher and attendant barista don’t get a mention.

And you, the consumer are king in the cycle. You have the power to pull corporations into producing sustainably produced products and services and the power to push governments into action on energy policies.

This amplification of the negative to the detriment of the positive means that we believe more people deny global warming than actually do. It means that we believe that a lot of scientists do not think mankind has contributed to global warming when they mostly do. This amplification means that the few scientists that do have divergent views on global warming get prime time and the multitude that don’t are effectively ignored. The science on global warming is conclusive. Our divisions are limited to what to do about it.

The solutions will enrich all

Solving global warming will take a toll on our economies. It will create new winners and new losers. We all want to win, and we must find win-win solutions for all. In the short term, there will be losers and winners, but in the long run, solving global warming will make us all richer and wealthier.

A cleaner environment, a better future for our children, a positive legacy for the generation that recognised the problem and addressed it, and a better impact of our role as stewards of this great planet that is home to countless other species of plants and animals that coexist with us here.

Transitioning our energy sourcing and use will generate millions of jobs in new industries at a time when we feel the machines are about to take all our jobs. Our youngsters can train in emergent industries in solar, wind and safe nuclear technologies. Experienced oil and gas exploration experts will have an opportunity to bring their process knowledge into new industries.

The impacts are manageable

The energy transition required to solve global warming alone will create new geopolitical realignments across the world. The oil rich nations will suffer a potential loss of wealth as we pivot away from the global warming inducing fossil fuels. The negative impacts of this can be over-emphasised, but we have had major transitions before and kept society from collapse. Many of the world’s major oil and gas producing countries are already showing an ability to pivot away from oil and gas into the new energy industries.

The changes required in the other major contributors to global warming such as agriculture may have just as significant an impact on the socio-economic well-being of the societies that may lose out. Adapting agricultural practices to reduce global warming will have significant effects on farmers that are often small, family-based enterprises. These effects are not insignificant, but the effects of doing nothing will be just as damaging to these same farmers.

This brings us back to our choices between wise altruism and egotistical self-interest. Choosing our self-interest is not always a bad thing. We all do it, and we need to excuse each other for doing it. The best of us, however, know that wise altruism is what would benefit all and what we really want to do if we could.

No need for name-calling

This article is not about name-calling even though there seem to be a lot of that going on here. It is about recognising how we can put aside our differences and self-interest for the greater good, a common good that will benefit us all.

As alluded to earlier, we all move through various phases in the evolution of our opinion on all subjects. We have wise altruistic thoughts and self-centred egotistical thoughts. We use our knowledge and decision-making process to prioritise which thoughts to act on and the ones to ignore. We aim for wise altruism but often fall for our self-interests.

We recognise what our better self would do but for the limitations of the situation we find ourselves in. We should therefore seek out and appoint leaders that help cultivate our wisest, most altruistic thoughts and refrain from politicians that seek to overwhelm us with a utopian view of what our egotistical thoughts can bring us. Especially on matters that threaten the very survival of our species.

Global warming will have catastrophic consequences for all of us. We are in this together, and as we seek to connect with our better side, we get closer to solving this challenge.