Since you’re visiting a Greenpeace website, you’re probably destroying Western civilisation. That is, according to London-based blogger and writer James Delingpole’s endearing book ‘Watermelons – How Environmentalists are Killing the Planet, Destroying the Economy and Stealing Your Children’s Future’. A few small accusations there. Let’s hope he backs them up with compelling evidence…
The book is just as unbiased and open-minded as the subheading suggests. Delingpole claims, for example, that:
- Global warming can’t be proven - so it can’t be happening – or if it is happening, it isn’t caused by human activities - or it isn’t harmful (well, which is it? It would be nice if he could make his mind up!).
- Global warming should be ignored, we should only care about global cooling.
- Carbon dioxide is not very dangerous, and the amount produced by humans is negligible.
- Climate factors are too complex to be significantly influenced by human activities.
- Humans and animals can adapt to environmental changes, as they have done in the past.
- The Arctic ice is melting, but not in an alarming or unusual way.
- There is no need for renewable energy, since there are large stores of fossil fuels.
- The Maldives are not sinking; it is a stunt the country uses to “extract large sums of guilt money from the richer industrialised nations”. The same goes for other disappearing islands and countries.
It is true that climate change can’t be conclusively proven - but you can’t even prove beyond doubt that other things like reckless driving are necessarily harmful (people sometimes get away with it and nobody gets hurt), or that the Sun doesn’t revolve around the Earth (although most evidence proves otherwise). What you can prove is that research and evidence make it appear extremely likely. The majority of contemporary scientists agree that global warming is taking place and is largely caused by human activities (1). There will be strong changes: wet areas will become even wetter and prone to flooding, since the sea levels will rise and there will be more precipitation; dry areas will become even drier so there will be more droughts and the danger of wildfires will rise (2). Experts agree that climate change will probably force many people to leave their home countries due to poverty, hunger or conflicts in connection with resources (3). A longer post about this issue can be found here: http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/groups/norwich/blog/migration-and-environment . Climate change is also very likely to threaten global food security (4) and upset ecosystems, killing off many species of animals and plants (5).
Doesn’t sound so good? Delingpole’s solution is to say that it’s all untrue. He won’t accept any research or evidence from people that he considers “green”. If environmentalist readers want to actually read his book to understand his point of view, rather than hurl it into a corner, they will have to live with his attitude and temporarily ignore what they know or think about environmentalism. However, no matter how open-mindedly one attempts to read the book and ignore one’s own established beliefs, some questions remain:
- Delingpole says repeatedly that he has very little scientific knowledge. If he can’t do tests himself or analyse data, why does he trust certain scientists and not others? Because they find results that he approves of and others don’t? Why should we assume that those scientists’ data is more reliable than that of the “green” scientists and comes from any more independently researched sources?
- It’s true that global cooling is a danger, but Delingpole’s suggestion that it is the real problem and global warming can solve it doesn’t make any sense, except on a very simplistic level. Firstly, scientists suggest that global cooling may be caused by global warming. For example, if fresh water from melting ice sheets enters the ocean, upsetting the normal circulation of warm and cold water, it causes a cooler climate (6). Secondly, warming does not just mean pleasant higher average temperatures in moderate countries so you can spend more time at the beach (appealing though that might be!); it is likely to lead to very severe changes and problems which Delingpole ignores or plays down, as if global warming were beneficial to all of us and climate were constant across the planet. Thirdly, global cooling may also be increased by other human activity, for example through aerosol use (7). Both warming and cooling are most likely exacerbated by human activity, and humans need to take responsibility for this, rather than ignore it.
- It’s true that humans and animals have adapted to changes in the past, but why assume that this will continue to happen, and how about the suffering that accompanied the changes and adaptation? Why not aim to avoid such suffering, rather than effectively declare that “we’ll manage somehow”? Also, adaptation to environment by humans and animals has taken millennia. The effects of global warming won’t give us that long.
- According to NASA “[h]umans have increased atmospheric CO2 concentration by a third since the Industrial Revolution began. This is the most important long-lived ‘forcing’ of climate change.” (8) Chlorofluorocarbons have caused massive damage to the ozone layer in less than 100 years (see, for example, www.theozonehole.com). Doesn’t that indicate that, despite Delingpole’s claims, gas levels and human activities significantly affect the global climate?
- Delingpole declares that it’s wrong to spend money on alternative energy, but plays down the costs of oil spills, pollution, nuclear accidents and the suffering resulting from them. He basically says that the environment can recover and oil spills don’t kill that many birds, so they’re not much of a problem. It is rather like declaring: “If illnesses kill thousands of people per year, who cares about one hundred who die in a train crash?” - deeply cynical and irresponsible. Plus, how is using taxes for environmental protection worse than spending them on unwinnable wars, fracking, bank bailouts, nuclear reactor programmes, or tax subsidies for rich companies? Is having cleaner soil, air and water such a bad thing?
- Even if there are more fossil fuels than conventionally thought, their amount is still limited. Delingpole argues that humanity will find a good replacement (he is enthusiastic about fracking and seems confident that when this method doesn’t help anymore, something else will appear), but what if the replacement isn’t found, isn’t efficient enough, or is extremely expensive? What if alternative energy is the good replacement he predicts and he simply refuses to believe it?
None of these questions are answered in a satisfactory way.
Delingpole is, of course, perfectly entitled to his opinion, and he is right in criticising some issues: rainforests being destroyed for allegedly environmentally-friendly biofuel; green-washing; the advocating of violence in the environmentalist movement, such as in the film No Pressure and in some activist groups; unethical manipulations of science like Climategate. These are perfectly valid points. Environmentalists should be aware of such problems and address them. However, if Delingpole wants to come across as a rationalist, who is much more respectable than those “bleeding-heart liberals” and “tree-huggers” (yes, he uses those clichés), he shouldn’t be so hostile and over-dramatic himself.
He frequently compares environmentalists to Nazis and Fascists: “eco-Fascists”, “the paradigm of green values in Excelsis – Nazi Germany”, “Nazi Germany did not represent some grotesque perversion of green values; rather, it represented their purest, most honest form of practical expression”… Er, yes. Of course. Caring about the environment indicates that you want to murder millions of people. Very logical.
He is wildly emotive - he says that climate sceptics at a conference “represented the true powers of goodness and light” (honestly!) and claims that the choice between environmentalism and scepticism is a choice of “optimism or pessimism; freedom or tyranny; joy or misery”.
He implies that environmentalists in general would like to kill anti-environmentalists: “[If the environmentalists turned out to be right], Evil Climate Change Deniers like me […] [would] possibly end up being tried by kangaroo courts staged by hard-core greenies, and sentenced to death”. How plausible. No matter if he is wrong, no matter how much suffering his views may have caused, no matter whether his opponents wouldn’t dream of sentencing people to death – he is the good guy, and those who don’t think like him are evil.
Someone who signs a petition against Arctic drilling is a potential murderer? The logical consequences of wanting to protect the environment are genocide and war? The Nazis’ monstrous deeds didn’t stem from brutal intolerance and hatred, jingoism, militarism, ruthless oppression of those who were considered weaker or “different” and the exploitation of the dire economic situation – they came from a love of nature? The suffering of their victims, who were murdered, raped, tortured, mutilated, economically ruined and driven to suicide, is comparable to being asked to save water and not drive 4x4s in the city? Delingpole complains vehemently about left-wingers who call him a Nazi, and he is right to do so – it is unfounded, unfair and extremely insensitive towards the Nazis’ victims. However, how can he think he has the right to do exactly the same thing to people merely because they don’t share his point of view?
Why is Delingpole’s book so aggressively anti-environmentalist? Really it is good old anti-left wing paranoia dressed up as climate change scepticism. Essentially, his formula is: Western civilisation is based on capitalism. The green/left movement want regulations that curb capitalism, and if you don’t support capitalism wholeheartedly, you must be a socialist. Therefore the green movement threatens Western civilisation. According to Mr Delingpole, environmentalism is really a cunning plan of the left to establish a socialist dictatorship. Hence the impressively clever title: watermelons are “green on the outside but red on the inside”.
Delingpole feels that environmentalism curbs human freedom. Apparently, introducing any regulations and asking people to act responsibly is far more of a threat than unemployment, poverty, lack of affordable housing, cuts to education and healthcare or being forced to work when you are ill or disabled. He also claims that the green movement sees humanity as a problem for the world, opposes civilisation and wants to deny other human beings a good life, luxury and eventually the right to live. Of course, another Nazi analogy is used: “The anti-capitalism, the hatred of economic growth, the curtailment of personal liberty, the disdain for the human race, the yearning for a One-World Government of rule by ‘experts’ – these are all as integral to watermelons as Lebensraum and extermination camps were to Nazism.” He conveniently forgets the huge number of environmentalists that do not disdain the human race, (accept capitalism,) want to encourage economic growth through ethical investment, want more liberty and are not against civilisation.
His lists of “watermelons”, “useful idiots”, “lefties”, “greenies” and so on include basically everyone who believes that global warming exists: from radical anti-capitalists, through environmental charities, New Labour, Prince Charles, certain Conservatives, Al Gore, companies with green policies, the BBC, various actors, to the Dalai Lama (rotter that he is!). They may have entirely different political views and aims, but who cares? They share one belief: namely that humanity should take responsibility for the planet on which it lives, and that’s enough. He ignores the fact that many of these “watermelons” are pro-capitalism or tolerate it, but admit that it’s capable of causing harm.
Delingpole’s alternative is a world of unlimited growth, where – he claims – there will be enough food for everyone (through capitalist generosity, of course?); limited resources need not be a problem because human ingenuity will find a way of replacing them (for free, no doubt, distributed by NATO and the IMF); there is no need to watch one’s carbon footprint, and none of these things will harm nature.
In his proclamation of unlimited growth he rather misses the point. There is abundant wealth today. However, it is unfairly distributed and often produced in exploitative and destructive ways; medication and even drinking water are unaffordable for many people; even though there is enough food for everyone, millions still starve, and a handful get rich off of it. The problem is not that capitalism does not provide abundance, but that the wealth is concentrated on very few people and doesn’t go to those who need it. Why would this change if we stopped trying to protect the environment?
Delingpole declares in bold print that “[t]here is no middle way” between being a climate activist and not believing in climate change. Why on Earth? Has he never heard that in an argument both sides can be partly right and that some people are capable of compromise and reasoned debate?
It would be nice to believe that the Earth can look after itself; that we can do what we want without any consequences; that human inventiveness will solve all problems and that the current society has the interests of all living beings at heart. Unfortunately saying “I declare myself a sceptic and will not believe anything that doesn’t fit in with my world view” is rather a cheap excuse and will probably come at a price – and not just to the self-declared sceptics.
(1) (http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/syr/en/mains1.html , p.1
(2) http://www.scribd.com/doc/98458016/Climate-Change-Lines-of-Evidence , p. 23 ff.
(3) http://www.iom.int/cms/envmig
(4) (http://www.scribd.com/doc/98458016/Climate-Change-Lines-of-Evidence , p.29
(5) http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/may/13/animals-species-climate-change
(6) http://www.livescience.com/3751-global-warming-chill-planet.html
(7) http://lifeofearth.org/global-cooling
(8) http://climate.nasa.gov/causes
Some interesting information on the writer can be found here: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/James_Delingpole
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