I am currently reading, The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming, by David Wallace-Wells. I am not done the book so I cannot give my complete thoughts on it. Wallace-Wells examines the abundance of climate change research and reports, and paints a graphic image of the different projected scenarios in an effort to humanize this crisis and make it more relatable. I feel that the best reader for the book is a climate change skeptic, with an open mind. It seems Wallace-Wells is attempting to scare this type of reader into action. Another reader he is trying to motivate into action is a reader more similar to myself. I believe that humans have influenced climate change, but I had become so numb and skeptical when learning about doomsday scenarios, that I did not entirely believe how quickly or dramatic the changes would affect us. Wallace-Wells wants us to know that large, irreversible changes have already occurred. The environmental affects of our pollution, even if we ceased carbon dioxide output today, would still be quite dramatic and felt for decades and centuries to come, and importantly, will continue to evolve and intensify. Humanity still has the ability, and I would say, the responsibility, to mitigate the worse case scenarios.
I have not finished the book, so I am not sure if Wallace-Wells examines solutions, though I assume he will get to it. Every time I pick up the book, my mind goes towards trying to find solutions to this Malthusian fate Wallace-Wells has portended. In particular I am trying to think of historical examples of policies that have helped humanity navigate similar challenges in the past. I cannot think of an example. If any reader comes up with an example, please do post it, I love to learn.
Given the attention of the ‘Green New Deal’ in the USA, my mind initially went to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s ‘New Deal.’ The New Deal was indeed quite revolutionary for its time, ushering in a new type of state activism. A major difference between the New Deal and any major environmental policy is the initial conditions in which the policy is introduced. The New Deal was introduced at a time of extreme desperation. Members from all echelons of society had lost their wealth, their job, their faith in the economy. Poverty rates in the USA and unemployment rates were at historical levels that have—thankfully—not been seen since. President Roosevelt was trying to bring about a great change that people wanted. The exact source of the problem and the solution may not have been so clear at the time, but the vast majority of people, regardless of their (former) job, geographic location, (former) socioeconomic status, race, etc. could agree that there was a problem and the problem required action. Importantly, the result of this action(s) should have, and did, dramatically improve the lives (read: wealth, employment status) of the vast majority of the American people, with very few losers.
The situation today could not be more different. Unemployment is at record lows, there is not a strong majority of people that even believe the problem exists, the damage from today’s actions will be felt greater in decades than tomorrow, there is a huge movement with large financially backing that is trying to convince people that the problem is not real, and policy changes will change the composition of the economy. For me, the big issue is the changing composition. Whether or not people believe in climate change is not as big of an issue. If saving a polar bear will increase Johnny’s wealth, then he won’t care why the polar bear is being saved, but he will be happy it is. If Saanvi thinks she will lose her job when the local coal powered generator gets shut down, she will find it hard to continue supporting ‘green policies.’ Maybe she will continue her support, but in other regions.
A well trained workforce can produce a flourishing economy, regardless of whether it runs on hydrocarbons or solar. In fact, I think that by transitioning to a ‘green economy,’ there is ample opportunity to create new infrastructure projects that could pull many people who have given up on (full-time) jobs, back into the workforce. The veracity of this belief can be left for another post. The problem is many industries will have to cease to exist, or at least become a shadow of their current form. Many people will lose their jobs, they types of jobs and their location may change as well. A single person losing their job is an problem, millions of people losing their job is a crisis. In my opinion, any restructuring of an economy will entail large jobs losses. These job losses will be concentrated in certain regions and industries. It will not just be oil companies and coal miners, but also those in tech who rely on energy hungry servers to store all of our private details so they can sell it to advertisers. Farmers, especially those who raise livestock will also be impacted. Those who build or rely on luxurious inefficient dwellings and transportation will be affected.
As I previously stated, I do believe that in the long-run, once capital is redistributed, the net impacts on employment and quality of life will be negligible, but for policy implementation that does not matter. In Canada, we have two neighbouring provinces that have basically bet everything on resource extraction in the form of mining and agriculture (with an emphasis on cattle). These provinces could easily implement several changes that would see their economies restructure into leading green economies, however, they have chosen to spend time and money denying the realities of human-caused climate change. Instead of gradual changes to their economies over decades they are now looking at dramatic changes over a decade. It does not matter if new green industries set up shop in these provinces, wind replacing coal, because the citizens will likely lose their current job before they are hired by a ‘green employer.’ I think government policies should therefore focus on ‘pulling’ these citizens into these new industries rather than relying on carbon taxes or cap and trade to ‘push’ them out of their current jobs and into new ones. One issue with this, is that it requires larger government intervention in the economy and larger government spending. Ironically it is also those in these industries that believe, (I find many people who benefit directly or indirectly from government subsidies are loathe to accept it), government intervention and government spending are bad things.
This is why government policy in regards to climate change is so difficult. Developed economies are doing relatively well (in Europe the situation is a bit different, but as the gilets jaunes movement in France shows, the issues are similar to those I have described), even if we can agree to accept the science of climate change, no one wants to be an economic martyr. I think that this is fair. We should not lightly accept that many ‘others’ will lose their job in the name of environmentalism. It is not enough to say that oil sands are bad and should be shut down tomorrow. We need to help finance the industries and jobs of tomorrow so that the solar panel producer will ‘steal’ workers from the oil sands by offering them a better job. This will turn a region or industry full of antagonistic workers into groups of people fighting for environmental policy because their incentives will align. But this is no easy task. In my opinion this will be monumental, more so than the New Deal. Likely what will happen, is that many people will lose their jobs as the world moves on towards a greener future, with or without the support of politicians. Those in industries that are most affected will blame China, politicians and snowflake millenials. Anything but the invisible hand of market forces. They will become bitter and angry. There will be a messy period of readjustment and then during the first major bull market in the ‘green economy era’ will allow many of those society chose to ignore, to find jobs in this new economic order. Eventually the environmental issues will be accepted as fact, taught in school but not in a contentious and political way. The economy will hum along until the next crisis. Hopefully politicians and policy makers will have learned the importance of pull factors, otherwise turmoil will repeat.
I would ultimately say that if you need a kick in the ass towards action, then Uninhabitable Earth may be worth a read, otherwise save some trees, skip reading the book and try to make some small positive changes. Just don’t forget to be compassionate and empathetic towards those who are facing the immediate existential threat to their jobs as well as the long term climate change crisis. If it helps, remember, that in the next major global crisis it may be your way of living that is under threat and you may be the one who is desperate for the understanding of others.
Niconomics 