{"id":1138,"date":"2013-11-14T18:25:25","date_gmt":"2013-11-14T18:25:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kevinanderson.info\/blog\/?p=1138"},"modified":"2014-09-28T15:11:11","modified_gmt":"2014-09-28T15:11:11","slug":"evangelising-from-32-thousand-feet-why-brendan-may-is-wrong-in-calling-for-environmentalists-to-fly-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/kevinanderson.info\/blog\/evangelising-from-32-thousand-feet-why-brendan-may-is-wrong-in-calling-for-environmentalists-to-fly-more\/","title":{"rendered":"Evangelising from 32 thousand feet: why Brendan May is wrong in calling for more environmentalists to fly"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post, by\u00a0<\/strong>Kevin Anderson, Dan Calverley and Maria Sharmina,<\/strong>\u00a0is in response to a Brendan May’s piece Why more environmentalists should fly<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>posted on the Guardian’s Environment Blog; 5 Nov. 2013<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was with growing dismay that we read Brendan May\u2019s most recent Guardian Blog, in which he defends his fifth flight to Jakarta this year and, worse still, exhorts more \u2018environmentalists\u2019 to fly (Guardian 6th<\/sup> November, \u201cWhy more environmentalists should fly\u201d<\/em><\/a>). \u00a0Even more disturbing is how a professed environmentalist could so misunderstand the quantitative and qualitative framing of climate change and the implications of rapidly rising emissions for precisely those issues about which he claims to be concerned.<\/p>\n

Why messages from self-styled environmentalists, evangelising to their unwashed parishioners 32 thousand feet below, may ring hollow has been previously covered (see Hypocrites in the Air<\/a>). Nevertheless, it is worth revisiting some of the issues in response to Brendan\u2019s arguments that people doing \u201cgreat things in the environmental field\u201d<\/em> are entitled and<\/em> obliged to travel the world and that more greens should fly to improve their global perspective.<\/p>\n

For Brendan\u2019s position to hold, he must start from one of two assumptions. Either (1) he contends that the 2\u00b0C characterisation of \u2018dangerous climate change\u2019, with its highly constrained carbon budgets, is inappropriate (or that the science is wrong); or (2) that the emissions released by environmentalists who must fly are outweighed by emissions savings elsewhere. If the latter, then he presumably considers that such worthy people should be allocated a larger slice of the carbon budget; with others accepting a concomitant cut in their budgets to compensate for his and his colleagues\u2019 additional emissions.<\/p>\n

Unless we have misunderstood Brendan\u2019s position, his \u2018defence\u2019 of relatively wealthy environmentalists flying around the world benevolently resolving the problems of poorer nations is bordering on colonial. This form of patriarchal egotism perpetuates the systemic nature of many issues. Whilst alleviating narrowly bounded but high profile concerns, from the extinction of particular species through to localised deforestation, it neglects more challenging and high-level drivers such as climate change. Certainly there may be niche benefits in Western experts applying \u2018sticking-plasters\u2019 to localised problems, but it is an inappropriate model for addressing the pervasiveness of climate change, let alone the more interconnected nature of sustainability.<\/p>\n

Emboldening more greens to fly, Brendan goes on to argue that by remaining earthbound the wider \u201cgreen community<\/em>\u201d risks wasting its energies on \u201cprovincial and irrelevant<\/em>\u201d issues and losing its \u201cglobal perspective<\/em>\u201d. Again Brendan\u2019s arguments come up short here too. He contends that without witnessing \u201cfirst-hand the changes looming from these emerging economies<\/em>\u201d it is not possible to comprehend the \u201csize and scale<\/em>\u201d of the challenges they represent. This is patently false. It is not necessary to have visited Greenland, witnessed the devastating consequences of (some) palm oil plantations or monitored in person the early impacts of acidification and warming waters on coral reefs to understand the seriousness of these issues. Arguing that \u2018perspective\u2019 relies on individuals flying to personally witness problems invites mistaking a partial snapshot for the whole truth. Eyewitnesses give notoriously poor accounts of events.<\/p>\n

Still more troublingly for a self-proclaimed great environmentalist, Brendan fundamentally misrepresents the basic chronology of avoiding \u2018dangerous climate change\u2019 when he declares that \u201cBritain\u2019s environmental footprint is miniscule \u2026 and will become ever more so in relative terms as growth continues in emerging economies.\u201d <\/em>This tired echo of the \u2018two per cent argument\u2019 is frequently invoked by those seeking excuses for personal inaction or to avoid putting their own house in order. How often have we heard that the UK is only \u2018a few per cent\u2019 of global emissions and hence what we do is irrelevant? Similar arguments are made on behalf of specific industries and equally apply to Germany, California, Beijing or Shanghai \u2013 all of which are also just a few per cent of global emissions. Divide the world into a sufficient number of small parts and everything fits within Brendan\u2019s classification of \u201cminiscule\u201d, i.e. so small as to be irrelevant.<\/p>\n

But to call Britain\u2019s environmental footprint \u201cminiscule\u201d is extremely disingenuous. The UK\u2019s total consumption-based emissions place it within the top ten high-emitting countries globally, responsible for around 7% of total annual emissions. Even more pertinently, amongst the big emitting nations, the UK has the third highest per capita emissions \u2013 <\/em>almost three times that of China\u2019s citizens (see http:\/\/www.theccc.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Reducing-carbon-footprint-report.pdf<\/a>). Given the cumulative nature of carbon dioxide, achieving deep reductions in the UK\u2019s (and Europe\u2019s) emissions, including those related to its imports, over the coming decade is crucial if we are to remain within the rapidly dwindling 2\u00b0C global carbon budget. Either Brendan does not understand this, or he chooses to ignore the maths.<\/p>\n

In light of this, Brendan\u2019s assertion that \u201cIn Britain we see ourselves as a hub of green innovation, the best thinking, the proud host of some of the world\u2019s most sustainable companies\u201d <\/em>just seems bizarre. We must move in very different circles. Amongst academic colleagues, contacts in NGOs and businesses, as well as during engagement with broader civil society and politicians, we get no sense of Britain being viewed as a proud \u201chub of green innovation<\/em>\u201d. However, given that Brendan\u2019s company claims to apply its \u201c<\/em>unrivalled experience in the business and public sectors<\/em>\u201d<\/em> to designing and developing \u201cambitious corporate sustainability strategies\u201d<\/em>, it may be that his view is reflective of the self-worth of the companies he advises; but it is unreasonable to assert that this is the common view.<\/p>\n

Turning to Brendan\u2019s concern about the \u201cvast rising middle classes of India, China<\/em>\u201d etc. \u2013 this too arises from a misunderstanding of both the timeframe of mitigation necessary to avoid \u2018dangerous climate change\u2019 and of the rate at which the poor are becoming high-consuming middle class citizens. Brendan appears to be muddling mean<\/em> values, skewed by very high emissions from the relative few, with mode<\/em> averages that take account of issues of distribution. The urgency of reducing emissions within the coming decade relates principally to the few high emitters and much less to the poor consuming more.<\/p>\n

Brendan May concludes his colonial rallying cry by noting how if the West\u2019s great environmentalists don\u2019t use their \u201cpower and skills to change the world <\/em>[and] don\u2019t travel round it with a sense of urgency,<\/em> there\u2019ll be<\/em> little left to talk about\u201d<\/em>. But isn\u2019t this exactly what self-appointed elites have been doing since the first Rio Earth summit over two decades ago \u2013 with precious little evidence of any systemic improvement in either emissions or broader sustainability?<\/p>\n

So before anyone is taken in by Brendan\u2019s superficially attractive arguments and jets halfway around the globe to bestow pearls of wisdom on the planet\u2019s needy folk, we need to stop and think long and hard. Apply a little circumspection and humility; is another wealthy Western environmentalist really able to offer a skill set that does not exist more locally or could not be rapidly fostered? If after very careful reflection the answer is yes, go ahead and arrange the travel \u2013 though preferably not by plane (see the dynamic arguments in the Hypocrites in the air<\/a> article), and preferably not for short, repeat visits (is it a failure of memory or of organisation?). But all this is a far cry from the gung-ho colonialism that underpins Brendan\u2019s piece.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post, by\u00a0Kevin Anderson, Dan Calverley and Maria Sharmina,\u00a0is in response to a Brendan May’s piece Why more environmentalists should fly\u00a0posted on the Guardian’s Environment Blog; 5 Nov. 2013 It was with growing dismay that we read Brendan May\u2019s most recent Guardian Blog, in which he defends his fifth flight to Jakarta this year and, worse still, exhorts more \u2018environmentalists\u2019 to fly (Guardian 6th November, \u201cWhy more environmentalists should fly\u201d). \u00a0Even more disturbing is how a professed environmentalist could so misunderstand the quantitative and qualitative framing of climate change and the implications of rapidly rising emissions for precisely those issues\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":5}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/kevinanderson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1138"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/kevinanderson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/kevinanderson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kevinanderson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kevinanderson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1138"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/kevinanderson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1138\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1140,"href":"http:\/\/kevinanderson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1138\/revisions\/1140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/kevinanderson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kevinanderson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kevinanderson.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}