Fragilecologies Archives
6 August 2007
You have to just love it. Here we are in the midst of a rapidly changing atmosphere (thanks to human activities), with dire consequences becoming more dire by the month and people, corporations and governments are jockeying around for the best position in a changed global climate regime.
The analogy that comes to mind would be a hypothetical situation involving the fateful demise of the ocean liner, the Titanic. The word is out that the ship is sinking, sliding slowly into the coldest waters on the planet. Life boats are being filled under triage conditions with young and women getting seats in lifeboats first. That is the main action taking place onboard.
Off to the side, if you can picture it, are several people who are busy fighting over the deck chairs, trying to get a better view of what eventually will be the sinking of the vessel they are on. Those clamoring to get off ill-fated Titanic are the future lookers. Those fighting for deck chairs are obviously taking the shortest term view of the future; they are what could be called the future eaters (a phrase used by Tim Flannery as the title of his book).
Who are those people (guys actually) who are squabbling over deck chair positioning and ownership? Sadly, they are most leaders around the globe. The most recent example is that of Putin and the Russian Federation ‘s claim for territory under Arctic ice. As used to be the case in the age of exploration, the planting of a flag could constitute a claim to territory in the name of a king or emperor. Putin sent two submersibles to the depths of the Arctic Ocean in order to plant a titanium Russian flag, claiming heretofore seemingly useless continental shelf. With global warming melting the Arctic ice, the shelf becomes more accessible for exploitation of oil, gas and any other minerals that might be discovered.
The flag planting and claim of sovereignty caught other arctic countries by surprise. To date no one has made such a specific blatant land grab, not that they had not thought about it! After all people are people and human nature ultimately rules, when there are no formal rules.
Interestingly, the Canadians and the Americans, among others, seem to have been salivating at the prospects of an ice free, navigable, Arctic Ocean . Goods could more easily be shipped from the Atlantic to the Pacific and vice versa. Alaskans who receive cash benefits to the person from the oil it exports to an oil hungry world are among the first to suffer from the effects of global warming. Yet, they still want even more oil to be extracted, sold and burned which ultimately puts more heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere. As the permafrost thaws increasing amounts of methane enter into the atmosphere as well.
About 20 years ago, I first raised the issue of “winners and losers” in climate change. Two agencies supported my international workshop on the topic. Their support for the workshop led to one UN funding agent being reprimanded and the other American funding agent being terminated. Then, the idea that there might be winners is a global warming scenario was not to be discussed in public. Perhaps the concern was that if the winners in global warming (the industrialized countries) were the same ones causing the harm to others (making them losers) then those benefiting from the harm that was caused to others would be liable along the lines of the “polluter pays principle”. In the early 1990s it was acceptable to talk of winners as well as losers resulting from a human-induced globally warmed earth.
Twenty years later corporation as well as governments are actively and openly positioning themselves as global warming winners. The Russian claim for North Pole oil and gas was not the first one; discussion of warm water ports around the Arctic nations has been discussed for some time.
Sad as it is, it can and likely will get worse. With such claims being made on Arctic sea bed resources, can the Antarctic treaty really hold off any similar “oil and gas rush” (analogous to a ëgold rush” or a “diamond rush” once a rumor of the existence of such resources circulates.
It is a sad day when a Russian Federation leader can unilaterally make a land grab that results from human induced global warming, the same global warming that will cause massive forest fires in Russia’s Far East, or dry up parts of the country, or melt its permafrost. Is it a sign of the state of international politics (a country seeking to reclaim a dominant role in history) or is it a sign of the stupidity aspect of human nature? Maybe it is a sign of both. Napoleon is dead but Napoleonic desire for conquest apparently is not.
NB: the title of this editorial was inspired by 2 works: a musical called “Oh What a Lovely War” and by R.K. White’s classic work on the origins of World War I, “Nobody Wanted War” Ö but they had the war anyway.