Precis on "Why Copenhagen May Be a Disaster"

Precis on "Why Copenhagen May Be a Disaster"

By Nuveen Dhingra

Bill McKibben, in “Why Copenhagen May Be a Disaster,” argues that the failure to recognize that climate change is not a normal political problem has been—and will continue to—retard our ability to adequately respond to it.

The article begins with a general statement about politics. “Most political arguments,” he writes, “don’t really have a right or wrong….[t]hey’re about human preferences….” Because most seemingly clear-cut stances on issues also have strong arguments to the contrary, politics relies upon compromise, which makes change slow. McKibben uses this characterization of the political process to explain why healthcare reform has been stunted. Perhaps a single-payer model has been thwarted this time, but at least its discussion may make people more receptive to it the next time healthcare is discussed. This is how politics-as-usual operates and may be a necessary cost of maintaining a pluralistic society.

The tools of politics-as-usual, however, are insufficient to deal with the climate change crisis. The problem in this crisis is unlike what we usually deal with: “Republicans, or socialists, or deficits, or taxes, or misogyny, or racism.” “The adversary here is physics.” While the normal adversaries are not immutable, the laws of physics do not sway. Politicians have been unwilling to react to the climate change under such terms. McKibben cites numerous instances of reluctance sacrifice prioritization of supposed national interests over honest recognition of gravity the problem.

Is Mckibben engaging in anti-democratic discourse? He advocates the suspension of normal politics in which actors attempt to reach consensus. In mobilizing the “wartime partnership” that Obama should have been seeking with China, he is figuring climate change as an emergency that must be responded to with a coordinated, authoritarian, and absolutist strategy. The crisis is upon us, and we have no time for politics. We know what must be done, and since talking about it will take too long, let us skip politics and go to war.

To be fair, this is not what McKibben is actually calling for, but perhaps only because it is not possible. Instead, he is arguing that politicians need to adopt these “wartime” discursive frames in the sphere of politics in order to accomplish what need to be done. But declaring war seems cheap. Politicians are always declaring war: on poverty, on drugs, on terror. What justifies the urgency here? Mckibben says that climate change is implacable, much like fascism was, and thus demands going “all in,” and putting all other things “on hold.” This is interesting because he earlier justifies the climate change crisis as being a different kind of problem by appealing to the laws of physics as immutable. Physics is “out there,” and marks its bottom lines independent of us. On the other hand, the human problems that he cites are yielding. But if the climate change crisis is like fascism, what can justify fascism as being “out there,” or as something that will not yield?

The distinction that Mckibben draws between fascism and climate change and “normal” political problems is unsustainable along these lines. Climate change and fascism are political problems that demand political solutions, and the same reluctance to recognize urgency can be said to pervade other political problems. Impending doom and irreversibility of harm are appropriate criteria for advocating urgency on climate change, but we must also embrace the political process if that is all we have. Should we focus on reducing carbon emissions before we tackle healthcare, entitlements, and financial regulation? I am not sure what McKibben would say, but I would rather have some healthcare reform before embarking on the trip that action on climate change will require. Perhaps organizing issues like healthcare reform and financial regulation around a green ethos could be a feasible way to get things done on all fronts.