Excerpts from the Peanut Gallery

Because I miss writing papers THIS MUCH.

I miss writing papers apparently, because I was compelled to write this monster this afternoon. It MAY or may not, have something to do with the fact that I was avoiding doing transcripts of last week's interviews, which incidentally is about as exciting as listening to public service announcements on mute. So, for your reading pleasure (or for something only a notch above a muted public service announcement...) I give you my thoughts on Climate Change, Skepticism and Development.

This morning, my old friend Paul Krugman writes in the New York Times about the opposition from Climate Change skeptics in the US Congress. Reminds me of the time that I got the response "What if I don't have kids, what if I don't even like kids??" from a professor when I used the 'protect future generations' line of argument in a paper on Climate Change and Development initiatives. He actually wrote that in the margin. There truly are all sorts of objections out there.

Now, nota bena, I am about as Canadian as they come in my feelings toward Climate Change: yep! We should do something! But – of course – in a calm, peaceful and orderly way. I am skittish of doomsday extremes; I am most comfortable smack in the middle. Let's not get carried away here, oh and while we're at it, allow me to apologize for that over which I have no control (such as, the weather). I am terribly sorry for all the inconvenience caused by melting ice caps both for the economic disadvantages caused by extreme weather patterns in the last few years and also for the personal discomfort you may feel during a particularly hot summer or wicked wind next winter. Mea culpa. Moreover, I know that there are extremes in the responses to tackling climate change, which also don’t sit quite right with me. For example, completely destroying today's opportunities for the poor with burdensome regulation that retards any chance of success in developing countries all in the name of climate change is also not an optimal response. But then, just ignoring it, denying it or dancing around the issue will also be an unlikely method for making it all go away.

This morning, though, I also came across this document on migration caused by climate change from CIESIN. I haven't read more than the synopsis - so a careful disclaimer that I don't actually know the details of it! The introduction is indeed a letter from Debbie Downer (most CC documents are – when I was doing my major lit review on the subject in January I seriously had nightmares from reading the Stern Review and got to the point that I had to change the subject of my readings within an hour before bedtime just so as to be able to sleep. Seriously). However, my intuition is that it is similar to what I am witnessing on a small scale here in Bolivia and what I experienced in Nicaragua. Climate Change predictions always sound so dire: millions displaced by flooding and fires and earthquakes and lack of water. We are not experiencing the disaster that some climate change predictions appear to insinuate. The popular conception of Climate Change warnings would make one think that we are just waiting for a levy to break and 6 billion people will all drown, with a few renegade survivors left to fend off aliens and robots and to perpetuate the human race from a hitherto unknown island off the coast of New Zealand. But that's not how climate change works. And in the very least, I am sure the Kiwis would be very cordial to aliens and not stupid enough to create self-promoting robots that destroy human life. The kiwis always seem very even-keel about these things...

I truly see a need to wrap our minds around this (Climate change, not aliens). Here's the way I see it: One year the rains are a bit more scant that usual. And, if you are a farmer in oh... let's say Bolivia, you think, "well, we're hooped, the crop is gone." (Only it sounds more like "puuuchica! ahi se va la cosecha!" but I digress) But then the next year, or maybe even later in that year (like this one in Bolivia) the rains come when it is normally dry (June, for example) and roads get washed out because they were only dirt and sand to begin with and what is left of the crop that wasn't destroyed by the abnormal monsoon rots on the patio because there is no way to get into the city for two weeks to sell it. That is the climate change I see – some physical effects that are compounded by political and economic factors (i.e. not having quality roads). There is enough environmental and economic discomfort to cause sincere problems of livelihood.

In both Nicaragua and Bolivia I have witnessed what it means to be dependent on rains that are by no means a farmer's friend. When those rains become less and less dependable, as they seem to have been in the last decade, then it is harder and harder for those who have less make a go of it with what they have. Just because Climate Change is not going to melt our skin off in a bath of acid rain tomorrow, doesn’t mean that Climate Change is a hoax. We are noting that the environment and the economy are rarely in sync these days. (Of course, the economy is not in sync with much). And granted, humans have always been at the mercy of nature when it comes to food production. But the scale of the amount of people who are at the mercy of it now does make our era peculiar.

In light of that, I make a case for paying attention to these sorts of documents – read them carefully and critically. Moreover, I think we need to put aside our dislike for children and children's children and take ourselves calmly, peacefully and with intelligence to a place where we are willing to steward the earth rather than squeezing out the last drops since our time is short (‘we all have to die someday’) and it might not last (‘we'll create technology in the next few years to replace it anyways’).

Moreover, I am compelled to remember that just because it does not affect me visibly (I can go buy my food easily from Safeway if the IGA market runs out!), this is not the case the world over. First, the chance of birth – that is, being born in a country and to a socio-economic circumstance that leads me out of subsistence living – does not excuse me from the dues I must pay to a global public good (the environment), which incidentally are far more valuable to those with another circumstance of birth.

Secondly, many people make do on much less nutritional variety, say nothing of material goods, than what I do. If there is a particularly nasty winter in Vancouver as we had this year, I am inconvenienced, but my livelihood is not jeopardized. I did not move to Bolivia from Vancouver in search of income. I know though that many Bolivians may move to Argentina or Spain because they can't afford to stay here any more. True, there are many factors involved there - not just poor crops. Urban and rural people are moving. Nevertheless, there is a collusion of so many factors, to which I often contribute blissfully unaware. And it is this contribution of mine which behoves me to examine my lifestyle and how I can take part in a larger picture of curbing the excess of western environmental and economic damage. What is going on when I drive to the store in my 4runner and purchase subsidized or undervalued food products and which have been produced using damaging environmental practices because of the grandiose scale of production – soy interestingly enough is one of the most environmentally damaging crops here in Bolivia because the industrialization of slash-and-burn production. (Now all the vegetarians feel bad – sorry bout that guys).

So hear what I am saying, please. I am NOT saying we should stop eating soy – or bread or bananas and for heaven’s sake not drink coffee! I am NOT saying we should stop driving all cars. I am NOT saying we should never go to the supermarket, and all revert to growing veggies and become hunter-gatherers. Nor am I advocating wallowing in our collective guilt.

I am advocating though a bit of a sackcloth-and-ashes moment for the western world. Back in the day, the Biblical day that is, people would wear sackcloth and put ashes on their head as a public sign of mourning, remorse and a changing of the ways. I think we too do right to come out with public signs of remorse for the extremes of carelessness we have for those more vulnerable to precarious climates, both economic and physical. Moreover, it is late, but better than never to take some time to "sit in the ashes:" examine the damage as it truly is, with vigorous science – both physical and social – and ponder where to go from here so that we do the best we can by our neighbour and ourselves with the resources we have.

posted by Kiki @ 5:55 p.m.