a bonobo humanity?

There are people in the world, in their millions or billions, who know, with as much certainty they can have about anything, that their god or gods exist. Yet, since they don’t all believe in the same gods, they cannot, as a matter of logic, all be correct, and there’s a strong possibility that none of them are. That’s my belief, but is it just a belief?

But my intention here is not to go on about religion, I’m thinking more about knowledge or what people claim as knowledge. For example, and this is my real topic here, some people claim that climate change, or anthropogenic global warming, is a myth, a mistaken belief, or a plot of some sort – a plot developed by certain people who somehow stand to gain by pedalling misinformation. And some people claim this without really believing it, while others presumably believe in it to the point of refusing to examine the science, which they strongly suspect is just indecipherable gobbledygook.

This seems to be the case for many people on ‘the extreme right’, but what exactly is the extreme right?

I tend to consider extremists as people who believe without thinking. Certainly without trying to think carefully or deeply. Another term often used is ideologue. An ideologue is someone who is, in a sense ‘previously convinced’ and ‘thinks’ from that previously convinced perspective, which is generally drawn from strong family and/or cultural influences. I don’t believe however, that they’re hopeless cases, or I don’t want to believe it.

An ideology is often something you will adhere to especially if you are treated well within and feel you’ve benefitted from that family and cultural background. For example, if your parents are both devout Christians and have treated you with kindness and devotion, and you feel strongly that you’ve benefitted from their parenting, you’re likely to feel a strong urge to continue in their tradition and to see the world through that lens.

Climate change ‘skepticism’, however is a non-belief, and it’s often, but not always, connected to a general skepticism of science (I’ve heard tell of Nobel Prize winning scientists who don’t believe in anthropogenic global warming). There are many people who are very ‘turned-off’ by science – not so much clueless as totally uninterested in looking for clues. Science just doesn’t matter to them, again due to background influences. And a lot of such people are in high-level political positions, especially in the USA. Again this is often because they are preoccupied with other things, such as power, wealth or fame – the phenomenon known as ‘getting ahead’, or ‘getting on top’. It would be interesting to ask Donald Trump, or say Nigel Farage, or Australia’s Jacinta Price, to expatiate on their favourite science. Or perhaps not.

These are three people who, I suspect, have never given any thought to finding out about climate change. I mean, doing some very basic research on the subject. And this is largely incomprehensible to people who, when they don’t know much, or enough for their sense of self-pride, about a subject, make some effort at learning more about it – like how the adaptive immune system works, or how we discovered exoplanets, or what’s this thing about birds being dinosaurs. They’ve been encouraged, perhaps even without realising it, to wonder about such things.

One of the problems of our political systems, whether democratic or otherwise, is that we generally find ourselves being led politically, not by people who want to know or learn stuff, but by people who want to control stuff. People who are ambitious for themselves. Examples of such people are too numerous and obvious to mention. And of course the opposite is generally also true – people who want to ‘find things out’ aren’t so much driven by the lure of wealth, power and control.

In the case of climate change, which is much about what we are doing with our wealth, politics and science often clash. It is a fact that our planet is warming faster than at any point in human history, and this is clearly due to greenhouse gas emissions. China is the largest emitter overall, and the USA, second in overall terms, is the largest emitter on a per capita basis, of the world’s highly populated nations (per capita emissions in some Middle Eastern countries, and in Palau, are quite a bit higher). However, China’s total emissions are between twice and three times that of the USA. Its government accepts the facts about global warming and is apparently committed to ‘achieve carbon neutrality by 2060’, though this will be extremely difficult, to put it mildly, given its plans for economic growth. As to the USA, its target will no doubt vary depending on which monarch is on the throne. And please believe me, that isn’t a joke.

We need, of course, to look to the big emitters overall – China, USA, India and Russia, in that order – because we in Australia are minnows in comparison – interestingly, we’re 16th in both overall and per capita emissions. Still, it would be great if we could set an example.

According to the Worldometer website, which I hope is reliable, and which unfortunately only has data to 2022, CO2 emissions are still rising worldwide, though in some major emitting countries, such as China and Russia, they’re reducing slightly, while in other mostly developing countries, such as Indonesia, they’re rising fast.

There are other sources which give more recent data, but the overall picture is complex. Many regions are quickly developing alternatives to fossil fuels to supply their energy needs, but global consensus on the problem, and especially from major emitters, is essential for success – success being measured by keeping global average temperatures to, if possible, 1.5 degrees, or at most 2 degrees, above a baseline (the average between 1861 and 1890). Many have given up on the 1.5 target, and a 2024 poll found that only 12% of US ‘Republicans and Republican leaners’ considered climate change to be a major government priority. This is serious considering that Republicans will probably be in power there for the next 50 years or so, given current trends.

Interesting times….

References

https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-per-capita/

https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-greenhouse-gas-emissions

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/03/01/how-republicans-view-climate-change-and-energy-issues/