Politicizing Climate Doomism: Part 1
Pessimism of the Intellect, Optimism of the Will - Antonio Gramsci
The climate scientist Michael Mann states that:
The greatest threat to meaningful climate action today is no longer denial, but despair and doomism, premised on the flawed notion that it is too late to do anything.
I am in agreement that the premise is flawed. It does not ask what we are too late for. Is the argument saying it's too late to limit ourselves below 1.5 degrees, 1.6, or even 2 degrees? There’s no coherent argument here. But also, while 1.5 degrees Celsius looks exceedingly difficult at this point, In my view the well below 2 degrees target is possible.
I also agree that this is the core message of what can be called climate doomism. However, I think Mann's views of what causes doomism are often incorrect. He focuses on people who exaggerate the effects of climate change. This may make a minor contribution to doomism, but I think it’s a small part of it. It is also my view that he engages in doomism himself.
So how does Michael Mann promote doomerism? It’s largely by unjustifiably attacking proposed solutions to the climate crisis. This includes Green New Deal solutions:
Some advocates of climate -change action have gone further, including author and activist Naomi Klein. As I stated in the Nature commentary, “[Klein’s] thesis is that neoliberalism—the prevailing global policy model, predicated on privatization and free-market capitalism—must be overthrown through mass resistance [and that] climate change can’t be separated from other pressing social problems, each a symptom of neoliberalism: income inequality, corporate surveillance, misogyny and white supremacy.”
Such framing fans the flames of the conservative fever swamps, reinforcing the right-wing trope that environmentalists are “watermelons” (green on the outside, red on the inside) who secretly want to use environmental sustainability as an excuse for overthrowing capitalism and ending economic growth.
Consider the following description of the Green New Deal:
“Some members of Congress are proposing a “Green New Deal” for the U.S. They say that a Green New Deal will produce jobs and strengthen America’s economy by accelerating the transition from fossil fuels to clean, renewable energy. The “Deal” would generate 100% of the nation’s electricity from clean, renewable sources within the next 10 years, upgrade the nation’s energy grid, buildings and transportation infrastructure, increase energy efficiency, invest in “green” technology research and development, and provide training for jobs in the new “green” economy. How much do you support or oppose this idea?”
This description did not alienate most American conservatives, at least until Fox news gave it negative coverage. Now, perhaps Klein’s description is a bit more alienating to billionaires. But on the other hand, I doubt it’s alienating to most of the world's population, particularly victims of white supremacy. It is in fact empowering to see solutions get suggested in the mainstream media.
The problem with Mann’s stance is that trying not to alienate billionaires is not going to work. If you suggest policies that would stabilize emissions well below 2 degrees, then you will alienate billionaires and rich conservatives. This is painfully obvious.
Furthermore, the trope that right wingers have of some environmentalists is largely correct. It is my agenda, and the agenda of many other environmentalists, that climate change should be combined with fixing economic injustices. This includes creating full employment, and working to undo neoliberal capitalism, and hopefully capitalism in the long run.
Let's remind the reader what full employment means:
Virtually all people who are willing and able to work can find jobs at prevailing wage rates.
Unemployment is therefore an undesirable state of affairs, by definition. Common sense dictates that It is less alienating to tell people working in carbon intensive industries who lose their jobs that they will be provided with new ones, than it is to just say they will lose their jobs.
The reason that environmentalists think full employment is an axiom to accept is because not having full employment is barbaric. But it would also empower those precarious workers and freshly graduated students in the “job” search.
The main reason I am opposed to capitalism is because I am in favor of democracy. Capitalism is often defined as private ownership and control of the means of production. If such a definition is accepted, then workers are controlled by corporate overlords, taking orders from above. Which is not democratic.
Worker ownership and control over the means of production would be democratic. Many environmentalists share similar positions to me. Pro democracy positions alienate authoritarians and oligarchs and a segment of the professional classes. It cannot be helped, because that's a tautology.
So the conservative trope that is described here is pretty accurate. The only condition that I do not meet is that I do not make my agenda secret, and the part about growth is a bit ambiguous. I definitely support most of the post growth policies, but whether or not they would increase GDP is unknown to me.
So is it a problem for the left if they alienate people with their pro democracy and anti climate catastrophe agenda?
People with green growth, or GND proposals can push them in tandem with post growth proposals. Billionaires will be alienated by both, but there is a lot of public support for the job guarantee, and even post growth ideas. The Green party in New Zealand has also just announced their support for the job guarantee. This is thanks to the people who decided to alienate people in their own profession with such proposals, until it became mainstream.
I wouldn’t necessarily reject the idea of pushing green growth narratives. All angles should be pursued at this point, and some people will certainly find green growth more palatable than post growth. But it seems obvious to me that pretty much every green growth narrative I’ve seen so far does not avoid an ecological catastrophe. I don’t see it in the reports that Climate Action Tracker provides. Nor does it limit us well below 2 degrees according to Vogel and Hickel’s analysis.
Here is one more quote from Michael Mann in the context of his critique of Wallace-Wells.
These errors and mischaracterizations aren’t innocuous—they are in service of the doomist narrative Wallace-Wells continues to promote. He argues that the existing framework (the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, or UNFCCC, and the annual Conferences of the Parties) for global climate negotiations has failed us and should be abandoned. Instead, he insists, it should be replaced with something akin to an international version of the Green New Deal. He points to the perceived failure of the most recent climate negotiations in Madrid as motivation for this position.
This argument is misguided on several levels. Not only does it engage in unhelpful despair-mongering, but it takes entirely the wrong message away from what transpired in December 2019 at the COP25 in Madrid.
Suggesting solutions like the Green New Deal is not despair mongering. They are the opposite. The absence of reporting of solutions is doomerism. As for the UNFCCC, I think you could quite clearly argue that there are some serious failures there! I wouldn’t necessarily say you should get rid of it. It could be overhauled, or replaced. But the context of what is prescribed matters. There’s no doomism here, because saying you want to do things differently while providing a solution really doesn’t fit the definition of doomism that Mann, or anyone else gives.
There are a lot of other scientists he labels as “soft doomers”, like Kevin Anderson and Will Steffen. I don’t agree with those critiques at all. On the other hand, I think his view that Guy McPherson and Jonathan Franzen are doomers are correct. The former is a crank who said we will be extinct by 2026. Franzen appeals to human nature, which he claims to understand so well that it’s impossible to do anything about climate change.
Call me a pessimist or call me a humanist, but I don’t see human nature fundamentally changing anytime soon. I can run ten thousand scenarios through my model, and in not one of them do I see the two-degree target being met.
The problem with appeals to human nature is that they are almost always selective. You can focus on the good deeds that people have done, or you can focus on the bad deeds that people have done. Societies can change their nature, or rather outlooks on politics as well. If it is falsely claimed that this is the way human beings are and always will be, then it implies that nothing can be done and you are pushing a narrative of despair.
This article has kicked off what will be a multipart series critiquing some of the narratives surrounding doomism, as well as speculating on the political nature of it. To politicize climate doomism, I had to start by explaining why I disagree with some of the current narratives. The next article will focus on the psychological narratives surrounding climate doomism.
Bibliography
Books
Mann, M. E. (2023). Our Fragile Moment: How Lessons from Earth's Past Can Help Us Survive the Climate Crisis. PublicAffairs.
Mann, M. E. (2021). The New Climate War: The Fight to Take Back Our Planet. PublicAffairs.
Articles & Papers
Franzen, J. (2019, September 8). "What If We Stopped Pretending? The climate apocalypse is coming. To prepare for it, we need to admit that we can't prevent it." The New Yorker. Retrieved from https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/what-if-we-stopped-pretending
Hickel, J. (2023, November 24). "How popular are post-growth and post-capitalist ideas." [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://www.jasonhickel.org/blog/2023/11/24/how-popular-are-post-growth-and-post-capitalist-ideas
Vogel, J., & Hickel, J. (2023). "Is green growth happening? An empirical analysis of achieved versus Paris-compliant CO2–GDP decoupling in high-income countries." The Lancet Planetary Health, 7, e759-69. Retrieved from https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lanplh/PIIS2542-5196(23)00174-2.pdf
Websites
Climate Action Tracker. (n.d.). "New Zealand." Retrieved from https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/new-zealand/.
deMause, N. (2020, January 31). "Media on Climate Crisis: Don't Organize, Mourn." Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR). Retrieved from https://fair.org/home/media-on-climate-crisis-dont-organize-mourn/
https://www.greens.org.nz/greens_mark_may_day_with_green_jobs_guarantee