Climate Change. What's the problem?

No, really. Why is our predicament still so catastrophic? Why is action not happening? I propose a single root cause.

Does this mean that it is all our fault? Not exactly. […] It is the absence of sufficiency—and thus, the inability to recognize when to stop, or at least, pause—that does us in.

Scientists have known about Climate Change for decades. Finally, everyone’s at least talking about it now, as the effects of global heating are materializing all around us. There are plenty of initiatives, some that are having significant positive impacts on a small local scale, some of which are international but barely making any perceivable dent in global warming. Lots of people are calling for more action all over the world. And still our predicament is getting worse and worse, year after year after year.

What is the problem?

Let’s look at the usual suspects. Most people start with the oil and gas industry. There’s no doubt about it. This is a very profitable sector that pushes hard for opportunities to extract more fossil fuel resources to sell. Perhaps they are just being greedy. How do they get away with this?

Then there’s our governments. They are the ones that give permission for oil extraction and pipelines. They decide which behaviours to reward with rebates and tax breaks. They could pass laws to change things, and instead, they are actually giving subsidies to the oil and gas companies. Why?

Well, what motivates governments? The simple answer is staying in power and getting re-elected. That may sound self-centred, but even the politicians who are in it to change things for the better know that change takes time and if the voters don’t like any of the steps along the way, the party will be tossed out in the next election.

“What is ecologically and socially necessary for sustainability is not politically feasible,
but what is politically feasible is ecologically and socially ineffective, if not catastrophic.” - Bill Rees

[I have another post that deals with government impotence more directly.]

That brings us to the third player in all of this – the general population. You may not feel you have much influence on this problem, being just one person. But behind the government, there is a long line of citizens and voters. These are the people who ultimately seem to determine the policies and directions that society moves in. Of course, getting elected also takes money, and there’s plenty of donations from the fossil fuel industry, who also keep up the pressure with lobbyists and backroom deals.

Still, if we look behind the oil and gas companies, we find another very long line of employees, shareholders, and consumers. The employees depend on their oil industry job to survive. The shareholders want to see more profits. The consumers want lower prices. And all three maintain a growing demand for cheap energy, based on the choices that they are making.

Does this mean that it is all our fault? Not exactly. Let’s explore further.

We know that, while some people don’t want to believe it or think about it, global warming from climate change poses a very serious threat to our survival and well-being. The vast majority of people, if asked, would say that they don’t want the catastrophic effects of global heating. And yet we have already seen that their choices are direct contributors to bring those effects upon the world. Why?

This is where things get interesting. Choices are based on values. Everyone values survival and well-being, but on a daily basis, our choices are based on simply being happy and successful. It is easier to connect our actions with those immediate concepts than to connect them with long-term threats like environmental disasters—threats that seem out of our control. The key is in how we define successfulness.

Consider two different human values: wealth and health. Monetary wealth is measured by number. It’s a number-based value, meaning it’s not only accurately measurable, but more is always worth more; in terms of wealth, more dollars are always worth more than fewer, and, being just a number, there is no maximum wealth; the concept is limitless.

Health is different. Unlike a bank balance, there is no single number that describes our health at any given time; that measurement is relative. That’s because health is a qualitative value. That attribute impacts our actions too. Some vitamins and medicines are good for our health, but only up to a point. More of those substances are not always good—indeed if we take too many, we can harm our health. There are limits.

That’s the most important message here: When it comes to successfulness, for number-based values (such as bank balances, votes, salaries, and even social media ‘likes’), more is always better. On the other hand, qualitative values, such as health, happiness, justice, and beauty cannot be measured by number, and their component parts (such as food, sleep, emotion, and discipline) all have a peak sufficiency where more is not better.

What does all this have to do with Climate Change? Well, it turns out, a lot.

Why do we have Climate Change? Because we’ve been burning too much fossil fuel for our energy. And our energy demands per person have sky-rocketed. Why? Because we consume more resources, we use more throwaway stuff, we move products greater distances, we live in bigger houses, and we eat food that has a bigger environmental footprint. Why? Because we are measuring our successfulness almost exclusively by number-based values, and more is always better. We have lost all concept of sufficiency with regard to our lifestyles. When you measure successfulness by number, it has no limit—you will never get there.

The really curious thing is that “More is Always Better” does not exist in the natural world. There is no resource for any species of life where more of that resource is always better. Water, food, warmth, territory, even population all have a peak value beyond which more does not add any value, and an excess could actually make matters worse, not better.

Humans, as animals, are no different. Our biology, and, consequently, our physical and mental health and overall well-being, are all subject to exactly the same principles: They are all driven by qualitative values—relative success—where More is sometimes nice, but even More is never Always better. Nature has built-in concepts of sufficiency and feedback that regulate the entire complex web of life. And yet, we don’t use those qualitative values to manage our lifestyles, or our governments, or our society. Instead, we score those based on net worth, GDP, and economic growth—limitless number-based values that always trump our natural values. Enough money can overpower absolutely everything that humans and Nature hold sacred.

Armed with this new information, let’s investigate our climate change suspect perpetrators again.

Remember the oil and gas industry? Those are all corporations. A corporation is an entity that we created on paper with one very clear legal obligation: make money. There is no concept of sufficiency when measuring corporate success—it is limitless, and More profit is Always better. Corporations are not a natural phenomenon that we must learn to live with. We invented them and wrote the programming rules ourselves. (Programming that we can change if society chooses to.) And who is driving their behaviour? The employees who need jobs, the shareholders taking dividends, and the consumers demanding more energy. Why? Because all three define their successfulness as More is Always better – an unnatural value that we invented.

So, the oil and gas industry might actually wish to limit their environmental and climate impact, but not at the expense of jobs or profit or maintaining demand for their products.

As for the governments, we elect them and set their priorities based on all of the same indicators: economic growth, GDP, and employment rates with good-paying jobs, all based on the same unnatural principle that More is Always better. And yet we know, from our own bodies and every single species around us, that life doesn’t work that way. Happiness and well-being come from sufficiency and feedback and qualitative values like joy, health, beauty, compassion, integrity, and justice.

So, our governments may wish to fight climate change and meet emissions targets to reduce greenhouse gases, but not at the expense of votes or GDP or economic growth.

And remember the third suspect – the general population? None of us want the effects of climate change, but we still want higher salaries, better smartphones, more processed foods, bigger houses, more fashion choices, and personal SUVs over mass transit. Why? Because we’re using this false notion that More is Always better. We just don’t connect the dots. (It’s not that nice things are bad. It is the absence of sufficiency—and thus, the inability to recognize when to stop, or at least, pause—that does us in.)

I call this phenomenon our Value Crisis. I have applied it to Climate Change here, but exactly the same principles drive our biodiversity loss, freshwater withdrawals, global conflicts, environmental toxic pollution, and much more.

Defining the value crisis was the mission of my first book (of the same name). My second book explored realistic and practical solutions to the value crisis. If you are interested, let me know, and I will start to shift my essays here into the realm of potentially solving our civilizational dilemma.

In the meantime, you might be interested to read how Climate Change may actually be part of the solution to the Value Crisis!